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Boosting catalytic activities of carbon felt electrode towards redox reactions of vanadium ions by defect engineering

利用缺陷工程提高碳毡电极对钒离子的氧化还原催化活性

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Abstract

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) are one of the most promising energy storage systems owing to their safety, efficiency, flexibility and scalability. However, the commercial viability of VRFBs is still hindered by the low electrochemical performance of the available carbon-based electrodes. Defect engineering is a powerful strategy to enhance the redox catalytic activity of carbon-based electrodes for VRFBs. In this paper, uniform carbon defects are introduced on the surfaces of carbon felt (CF) electrode by Ar plasma etching. Together with a higher specific surface area, the Ar plasma treated CF offers additional catalytic sites, allowing faster and more reversible oxidation/reduction reactions of vanadium ions. As a result, the VRFB using plasma treated electrode shows a power density of 1018.3 mW/cm2, an energy efficiency (EE) of 84.5%, and the EE remains stable over 1000 cycles.

摘要

钒氧化还原液流电池(钒液流电池)因其安全性、高效性、灵活性和可扩展性成为最有前途的储 能系统之一。然而,现有的碳基电极较低的电化学性能阻碍了钒液流电池的商业化应用,缺陷工程是 提高钒液流电池用碳基电极氧化还原催化活性的有效策略。本文采用氩气等离子体刻蚀法在碳毡电极 表面引入均匀的碳缺陷结构,使其具有更高的比表面积和额外的催化位点,促进了钒离子氧化还原反 应的可逆性。结果表明,采用等离子体处理碳毡电极的钒液流电池的功率密度提高到1018.3 mW/cm2, 能量效率为84.5%,且在1000次充放电循环后仍能保持稳定。

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha, 410114, China

    Jian Xu  (徐建), Yi-qiong Zhang  (张怡琼), Xiao-bo Zhu  (朱晓波), Ting Long  (龙婷), He Xu  (徐贺), Xue-chun Lou  (楼雪纯), Zhi-zhao Xu  (徐志钊), Hu Fu  (伏虎), Wei-zhe Xiang  (向维哲), Ming-ming Xie  (谢明明) & Chuan-kun Jia  (贾传坤)

  2. School of Traffic & Transportation Engineering, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha, 410114, China

    Chuan-kun Jia  (贾传坤)

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  1. Jian Xu  (徐建)
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Contributions

JIA Chuan-kun conceived the experiment, obtained funding and provided resources. XU Jian conducted the main experiments, analyzed the measured data and wrote the draft. ZHANG Yi-qiong provided some experimental guides. ZHU Xiao-bo reviewed and edited the draft of the manuscript. LONG Ting processed some experimental data. XU He processed some data and conceived the schematic. LOU Xue-chun, XU Zhi-zhao, FU Hu and XIE Ming-ming performed some experiment and assisted in analyzing relevant data. XIANG Wei-zhe assisted in responding to the review comments.

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Correspondence to Chuan-kun Jia  (贾传坤).

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Conflict of interest

XU Jian, ZHANG Yi-qiong, ZHU Xiao-bo, LONG Ting, XU He, LOU Xue-chun, XU Zhi-zhao, FU Hu, XIANG Wei-zhe, XIE Ming-ming, and JIA Chuan-kun declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Foundation item: Project(Xiang Zu [2016] 91) supported by the “100 Talented Teams” of Hunan Province, China; Project(2018RS3077) supported by the Huxiang High-level Talents Program, China; Project(22002009) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Project(2021JJ40565) supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, China; Project(19C0054) supported by the Scientific Research Foundation of Hunan Provincial Education Department, China

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Xu, J., Zhang, Yq., Zhu, Xb. et al. Boosting catalytic activities of carbon felt electrode towards redox reactions of vanadium ions by defect engineering. J. Cent. South Univ. 29, 2956–2967 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-022-5129-z

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