A high-performance flow-field structured iron-chromium redox flow battery

Unlike conventional iron-chromium redox flow batteries (ICRFBs) with a flow-through cell structure, in this work a high-performance ICRFB featuring a flow-field cell structure is developed. It is found that the present flow-field structured ICRFB reaches an energy efficiency of 76.3% with a current density of 120 mA cm−2 at 25 °C. The energy efficiency can be as high as 79.6% with an elevated current density of 200 mA cm−2 at 65 °C, a record performance of the ICRFB in the existing literature. In addition, it is demonstrated that the energy efficiency of the battery is stable during the cycle test, and that the capacity decay rate of the battery is 0.6% per cycle. More excitingly, the high performance of the flow-field structured battery significantly lowers the capital cost at $137.6 kWh−1, which is 28.2% lower than that of the conventional ICRFB for 8-h energy storage.