Sulfonated poly(ether sulfone)/poly(vinylidene fluoride) hybrid membrane for vanadium redox flow battery

Abstract

Sulfonated poly(ether sulfone)/poly(vinylidene fluoride) (SPES/PVDF) blends are prepared and employed as the separator for vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) to evaluate the vanadium ions permeability and cell performance. The SPES/PVDF membranes exhibit dramatically vanadium ions permeability and cell performance compared with pristine SPES and Nafion115 membrane. The vanadium ion permeability of SPES/PVDF membrane is 1 order of magnitude lower than that of Nafion115 membrane. The low-cost composite membrane exhibits a better performance than Nafion115 membrane at the same operating condition. VRB single cell with SPES/PVDF membrane shows significantly lower capacity loss, higher coulombic efficiency (>98%) and higher energy efficiency (>84%) than that with Nafion115 membrane. In the self-discharge test, S_0.7P_0.3 membrane shows twice longer duration in the open circuit decay than that with Nafion115 membrane. With all the good properties and low cost, the SPES/PVDF membrane is expected to have excellent commercial prospects as an ion exchange membrane for VRB systems.

Keywords

Sulfonated poly(ether sulfone)poly(vinylidene fluoride)vanadium redox flow battery ion exchange membrane

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Sukkar

Skyllas-Kazacos

. Modification of membranes using polyelectrolytes to improve water transfer properties in the vanadium redox battery. J Membrane Sci 2003; 222: 249–264.

Fabjan

Garche

Harrer

. The vanadium redoxbattery: an efficient storage unit for photovoltaic system Electrochim Acta 2001; 47: 825–831.

Mohammadi

Chieng

Skyllas-Kazacos

. Water transport study across commercial ion exchange membranes in the vanadium redox flow battery. J Membrane Sci 1997; 133: 151–159.

Ling

Jia

Liu

. Preparation and characterization of sulfonated poly(ether sulfone)/sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) blend membrane for vanadium redox flow battery. J Membrane Sci 2012; 415: 306–312.

Gao

Sun

Gao

. Novel acid-base hybrid membrane based on amine-functionalized reduced graphene oxide and sulfonated polyimide for vanadium redox flow battery. Electrochim Acta 2015; 158: 24–34.

Huang

RYM

Shao

Burns

. Sulfonation of poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK): kinetic study and characterization. J Appl Polym Sci 2011; 82: 2651–2660.

Zhang

. Sulfonated polyimide/s-MoS₂ composite membrane with high proton selectivity and good stability for vanadium redox flow battery. J Membr Sci 2015; 49:179–189.

Cao

. Morphology and performance of poly(ether sulfone)/sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) blend porous membranes for vanadium flow battery application. RSC ADV 2014; 4: 400–406.

Wiedemann

Heintz

Lichtenthaler

. Transport properties of vanadium ions in cation exchange membranes: determination of diffusion coef1cients using a dialysis cell. J Membr Sci 1998; 141: 215–221.

10.

Pivovar

Wang

Cussler

. Pervaporation membranes in direct methanol fuel cells. J Membr Sci 1999; 154: 155–162.

11.

Mai

Zhang

. Nafion/polyvinylidene fluoride blend membranes with improved ion selectivity for vanadium redox flow battery application. J Power Sources 2011; 196: 5737–5741.