Issue 73, 2017, Issue in Progress

Design and synthesis of a free-standing carbon nano-fibrous web electrode with ultra large pores for high-performance vanadium flow batteries

Abstract

To improve the transport of active species in the carbon nano-fibrous electrodes of a vanadium flow battery (VFB), a free-standing carbon nano-fibrous web with ultra large pores has been designed and fabricated through the horizontally-opposed blending electrospinning method in this study. The morphology, surface chemistry and electrochemical performances of the highly porous nano-fibrous web have been investigated and compared with the carbon nano-fibrous web prepared by traditional electrospinning. Benefiting from the much larger pore size and higher porosity of the carbon nano-fibrous web prepared by horizontally-opposed blending electrospinning, the concentration polarization of the vanadium flow battery is effectively reduced. As indicated by the single cell tests, the battery using horizontally-opposed blending electrospun carbon nano-fibrous web electrodes delivers much improved performance, especially at high current density. The voltage efficiency is 10.3% higher than that of the traditional electrospun carbon nano-fibrous web electrodes and the electrolyte utilization efficiency is twice as much as that of the traditional electrospun carbon nano-fibrous web electrodes at 60 mA cm−2. The results suggest that expanding the pore size could be one effective strategy to facilitate carbon nano-fibrous materials' applications for VRBs, and that the horizontally-opposed blending electrospun carbon nano-fibrous web is a promising electrode candidate for VFBs.

Graphical abstract: Design and synthesis of a free-standing carbon nano-fibrous web electrode with ultra large pores for high-performance vanadium flow batteries

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
04 Jul 2017
Accepted
22 Sep 2017
First published
26 Sep 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 45932-45937

Design and synthesis of a free-standing carbon nano-fibrous web electrode with ultra large pores for high-performance vanadium flow batteries

C. Xu, X. Li, T. Liu and H. Zhang, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 45932 DOI: 10.1039/C7RA07365H

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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