Integrated Saltwater Desalination and Energy Storage through a pH Neutral Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Battery

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title

Advanced Functional Materials

Publication Date

4-27-2020

Publisher

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA

Award Number

NSF, Division of Chemistry (CHE) 1847674

Funder

NSF, Division of Chemistry (CHE)

Volume

30

Issue

24

First Page

1

Last Page

8

Abstract

Here, a pH neutral aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) consisting of three electrolytes channels (i.e., an anolyte channel, a catholyte channel, and a central salt water channel) to achieve integrated energy storage and desalination is reported. Employing a low cost, chemically stable methyl viologen (MV) anolyte, and sodium ferrocyanide catholyte, this desalination AORFB is capable of desalinating simulated seawater (0.56 m NaCl) down to 0.023 m salt concentration at an energy cost of 2.4 W h L−1 of fresh water—competitive with current reverse osmosis technologies. Simultaneously, the cell delivers stored energy at 79.7% efficiency with a cell voltage of 0.85 V. Furthermore, the cell is also capable of higher current operation up to 15 mA cm−2, providing 4.55 mL of fresh water per hour. Combining energy storage and water desalination into such a bifunctional device offers the opportunity to address two growing global issues from one hardware installation.

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