A highly permeable and enhanced surface area carbon-cloth electrode for vanadium redox flow batteries

• A high performance carbon cloth electrode is developed for flow batteries.
• The developed electrode offers good transport properties and high surface area.
• The battery with the carbon cloth electrode offers high performance.

In this work, a high-performance porous electrode, made of KOH-activated carbon-cloth, is developed for vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs). The macro-scale porous structure in the carbon cloth formed by weaving the carbon fibers in an ordered manner offers a low tortuosity (∼1.1) and a broad pore distribution from 5 μm to 100 μm, rendering the electrode a high hydraulic permeability and high effective ionic conductivity, which are beneficial for the electrolyte flow and ion transport through the porous electrode. The use of KOH activation method to create nano-scale pores on the carbon-fiber surfaces leads to a significant increase in the surface area for redox reactions from 2.39 m2 g−1 to 15.4 m2 g−1. The battery assembled with the present electrode delivers an energy efficiency of 80.1% and an electrolyte utilization of 74.6% at a current density of 400 mA cm−2, as opposed to an electrolyte utilization of 61.1% achieved by using a conventional carbon-paper electrode. Such a high performance is mainly attributed to the combination of the excellent mass/ion transport properties and the high surface area rendered by the present electrode. It is suggested that the KOH-activated carbon-cloth electrode is a promising candidate in redox flow batteries.