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FLOW BATTERIES

Working in the cold

Nature Energy volume 7, pages 394–395 (2022)Cite this article

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Redox flow batteries offer a readily scalable solution to grid-scale energy storage, but their application is generally limited to ambient temperatures above 0 °C. Now, a polyoxometalate-based chemistry has been developed to enable redox flow batteries to operate, and even thrive, under frigid conditions.

One of the key limitations for RFBs, however, is temperature stability, particularly in the cold. Although industry-leading vanadium RFBs are stable up to 45 °C, below 0 °C the active vanadium species in the anolyte begin to precipitate out of the solution, severely degrading performance1,2. Practically, this limits the installation of RFBs to relatively moderate climates, or requires use of expensive temperature-management systems. Writing in Nature Energy, Yi-Chun Lu and co-workers3 from The Chinese University of Hong Kong now report the operation of a high-power-density RFB at –20 °C, a considerable improvement in temperature stability.

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Fig. 1: A RFB with a H6P2W18O62-based aqueous anolyte.

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  1. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA

    Leo J. Small & Travis M. Anderson

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  1. Leo J. Small
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  2. Travis M. Anderson
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Correspondence to Travis M. Anderson.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Small, L.J., Anderson, T.M. Working in the cold. Nat Energy 7, 394–395 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01017-6

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