Experimental Study on Test-Bed Vanadium Redox Flow Battery Available to Purchase

An experimental study has been conducted to develop a test-bed for advanced vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) for renewable energy applications. Lab scale experimental setup has been designed based on enhanced geometry of mechanical components and reduced power consumption in terms of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. Two tests have been conducted with variations of flowrate, concentration of electrolytes and electrical input power. The VRFB project has been collaborated between Arkansas State University Jonesboro (ASUJ) and University of Arkansas Fayetteville (UAF) to integrate VRFB with micro-grid at UAF. To obtain comparable experimental data, a test bed made of two half cells was constructed and joined together by a permeable membrane designed to facilitate ion transfer between two separate vanadium electrolytes. This research aims to better understand and demonstrate the transient characteristics of VRFB in order to refine the system in hopes of improving efficiency. This paper will focus on the steps taken to experimentally validate preliminary performance of the VRFB test bed. An analytical model has been performed to validate design and test of VRFB. Future work will be addressed to develop a pilot-scale multiple cell stacks with enhanced efficiency and temperature limits.