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Preliminary study on fire risk of redox flow battery components

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Abstract

The redox flow battery (RFB) is one new kind of energy storage unit, which is used in electrochemical energy storage. However, the knowledge on its fire risk is very limited. Thus the fire risk of redox flow batteries was investigated using cone calorimeter and C80 calorimeter in this work. The combustion behaviors of RFB components are tested using cone calorimeter, whereas the thermal behaviors of the component materials, including bipolar plate, electrode frame, electrode and membrane, inside the RFBs are measured using C80 calorimeter. By comparing the results in two experiments, it is indicated that the main hazardous source of the fire is the electrode frame, followed by the bipolar plate. The thermal stability of membranes is the worst. The electrode is a non-flammable component with little fire risk. This analytical results can provide safety guide for both improvements of RFBs and large scale usage.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Science and Technology Project from China Southern Power Grid (No. 020000KK52180010).

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  1. Man Chen and Pengjie Liu have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSG Power Generation Co, Ltd, Guangzhou, 510630, China

    Man Chen, Yongqi Li & Zhenkai Hu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Pengjie Liu, Yuhang Hu & Qingsong Wang

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  1. Man Chen
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Correspondence to Qingsong Wang.

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Chen, M., Liu, P., Li, Y. et al. Preliminary study on fire risk of redox flow battery components. J Therm Anal Calorim 147, 4131–4140 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-021-10815-1

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