Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
6606725 | Electrochimica Acta | 2016 | 13 Pages |
Abstract
Low-cost branched sulfonated polyimide (bSPI) membranes were prepared for vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) application. The degree of branching (DB) of membranes was controlled to be 0-12% through changing the mole ratio of branched non-sulfonated diamine to dianhydride. Both FT-IR and NMR spectra verified the successful preparation of bSPI membranes. The morphology was observed using SEM. Thermal and mechanical properties of bSPI-8 membrane were better than linear SPI. Chemical stability of bSPI membranes was higher than linear SPI. Both proton conductivity (2.97-4.53 Ã 10â2 S cmâ1) and vanadium ion permeability (4.51-12.23 Ã 10â7 cm2 minâ1) of bSPI membranes increase with the DB. The bSPI-8 membrane with the highest proton selectivity and superior stability shows higher coulombic efficiency (CE, 97-99%) and energy efficiency (EE, 67-80%) than Nafion⢠117 membrane (CE, 95-98%, and EE, 62-73% respectively) at 50-120 mA cmâ2. Besides, the VRB with bSPI-8 membrane shows stable efficiency and good capacity retention during 800-cycle charge-discharge test. Therefore, the optimized bSPI-8 membrane is of great potential in VRB system because of its excellent battery performance and operational stability.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
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Authors
Yaping Zhang, Shuai Zhang, Xiaodong Huang, Yuqin Zhou, Yang Pu, Hongping Zhang,