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A cost and performance model is created comparing static and ow battery architectures.
Battery chemistries are considered that can be used in static or ow batteries.
Conditions for minimum stack cost are identied to inform low-cost battery design.
Tank to reactor size ratio and uid yield stress help determine the ideal design.
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 26 February 2015
Received in revised form
28 April 2015
Accepted 5 June 2015
Available online 16 June 2015
Flow batteries are a promising grid-storage technology that is scalable, inherently exible in power/
energy ratio, and potentially low cost in comparison to conventional or static battery architectures.
Recent advances in ow chemistries are enabling signicantly higher energy density ow electrodes.
When the same battery chemistry can arguably be used in either a ow or static electrode design, the
relative merits of either design choice become of interest. Here, we analyze the costs of the electrochemically active stack for both architectures under the constraint of constant energy efciency and
charge and discharge rates, using as case studies the aqueous vanadium-redox chemistry, widely used in
conventional ow batteries, and aqueous lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP)/lithium-titanium-phosphate
(LTP) suspensions, an example of a higher energy density suspension-based electrode. It is found that
although ow batteries always have a cost advantage ($ kWh1) at the stack level modeled, the
advantage is a strong function of ow electrode energy density. For the LFP/LTP case, the cost advantages
decreases from ~50% to ~10% over experimentally reasonable ranges of suspension loading. Such results
are important input for design choices when both battery architectures are viable options.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Flow battery
Cost model
Vanadium
Lithium iron phosphate
Lithium titanium phosphate
Electrochemistry
1. Introduction
Low-cost electrical energy storage can greatly facilitate the
integration of intermittent renewable power generation into the
electric grid [1]. However, the cost of available energy storage
technologies has been too high for most large-scale grid applications [2,3]. Flow batteries are considered to be promising candidates for large-scale storage due to their inherent scalability and
decoupled power and energy. The cost per stored energy, e.g., $
kWh1, of ow batteries generally decreases as the ratio of tank size
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ychiang@mit.edu (Y.-M. Chiang).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2015.06.023
0378-7753/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Fig. 1. (a) Static battery with plug count of one. (b) Flow battery with plug count equal to four if the contribution of solutions or suspensions stored in the piping and pumps is
considered to be negligible.
he
Fig. 2. Dimensions of single cell. The variables l and w are dimensions of the current
collector and separator. The variable hp is the electrode thickness or distance from the
current collector to the separator.
1
Cst
he re
cac
!
cs cs 1 1n
2hp rp
(1)
Cst is the stack energy cost of a static battery when p 1 and that
of a ow battery when p > 1. The difference in stack cost between a
static and a ow battery, Cs-f, is:
Csf
cs cc 1 1n 1
2he rre
1
h1 hp p
feq DF
"
Rasr
(2)
Eq. (2) shows that the difference in stack cost between static and
ow batteries is maximized when (i) anode and cathode solutions
or suspensions have low volumetric densities and low energy
densities, and (ii) the cost of separator and current collector is high.
The dependence of cost on electrode thicknesses, h1 for the static
cell and hp for the ow cell, is less obvious and requires consideration of the dependence of charge and discharge rate and efciency
on thickness as discussed in the next section.
3. Energy-efciency model
Energy efciency, the ratio of discharge energy to charge energy,
is calculated taking into account both electrochemical losses and
pumping losses, the latter applying only to the ow battery. In the
case of electrochemical efciency, we assume that the same
(3)
feq DF
ha
2
1
seff ;a
keff ;a
Rs
hc
2
1
seff ;c
1
keff ;c
!#
(4)
2Rg T
1
hj
a sinh
2hj i0;j as;j
F
!
(5)
area per unit electrode-volume are i0,j and as,j, respectively, and Rg,
T, and F are the universal gas constant, temperature, and Faraday's
constant.
The ow battery has additional losses due to pumping the uid
through the stack channels. Due to the need for thin electrodes to
maximize electrochemical efciency, the pumping losses are likely
much greater in the stack than anywhere else in the system. The
pumping losses are a function of the uid properties of the electrode, the electrode thickness, and the length of the ow channel,
and are calculated as follows. Flow channels of length l with a high
aspect ratio rectangular cross-section (w >> hp) are assumed, as
this cross-section minimizes pumping losses. The pumping losses
are calculated as a percentage of the theoretical energy density of
the system by assuming that full depth-of-discharge is achieved in
a single ow-pass, i.e., stoichiometric ow conditions are used. The
energy density per unit volume dissipated to pump suspension or
solution through the cell in a single pass is calculated as DP(1 1/p).
DP is the pressure-drop across the static cell's current collector, and
its calculation depends on the type of uid employed in the ow
cell, as described subsequently. Solution and suspension pressuredrops were calculated according to the inset equations in Fig. S1a
and b, respectively. For the suspension, plastic viscosity is neglected, because for the cases shown, the elastic stresses dominate the
ow, which is reected by a Bingham number, the characteristic
ratio of elastic-to-viscous ow stresses, that is greater than unity
[13].
The total energy efciency including both electrochemical and
mechanical losses is constrained to be 95% in most of the results
shown. Channel lengths l of 100 mm to 3 m are evaluated, as this
encompasses a realistic range of stack dimensions. The pressure
drop DP is calculated as a function of plug count p for cells having
(a) vanadium-redox solution and (b) suspension with 10 vol% LFP.
For each plug count, DP was calculated for the thickness hp corresponding to the specied energy efciency including electrochemical and mechanical energy-losses at C/5 system-level rate
and with separator length l. Continuous, stoichiometric ow conditions were assumed. The pressure drop results are shown in
Fig. S1 in the supplemental information to this article.
The LFP suspension was assumed to have a Bingham plastic
rheology with yield shear-stress t0 equal to 6.5 Pa, as measured
previously for 10 vol% LFP with 1 vol% Ketjen black [15]. Suspensions with 20 vol% and 40 vol% active material were modeled with
yield shear-stresses of 62 Pa and 172 Pa, respectively. These values
were estimated by linear extrapolation of yield shear-stress data in
Ref. [15] with LFP loading for suspensions with 1 vol% Ketjen black.
Solution pressure-drop caused by ow through a porous current
collector was modeled using the inset equation in Fig. S1a assuming
Darcy ow for a saturated VIV solution in 5 mol L1 H2SO4 with a
viscosity of 10 mPa s [16] and a hydraulic permeability k of 1011 m2
for 7 mm diameter carbon-ber felt at 20 vol% [17]. The electrode
thickness that gives 95% round trip energy efciency (or other
values noted later), taking into account both electrochemical and
pumping losses, was then used as input to determine the relative
costs of the ow and static cells.
4. Properties of model chemistries
The average open-circuit potential is taken as 1.3 V for the
vanadium-redox chemistry [18] and 0.9 V for the LFP/LTP chemistry
[15]. For the 2 mol L1 vanadium-redox solution, a volumetric capacity of 53.6 mAh cm3 is assumed. For the LFP/LTP chemistry, it is
assumed that the cell is cathode-limited with a theoretical capacity
of 610 mAh cm3 based on LFP volume only [19]. The effective
electronic conductivity used for both electrodes of the vanadiumredox cell is 100 S m1, estimated for a ow-through carbon felt.
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Fig. 3. Losses in efciency due to pumping for an electrode thickness that yields 95% energy efciency including electrochemical and mechanical energy losses for (a) vanadiumredox solution and (b) 10 vol% LFP/15 vol% LTP suspension cells cycled at C/5 system-level rate and with membrane length l listed in the legend.
Fig. 4. Electrode thickness hp corresponding to 95% energy efciency including electrochemical and mechanical energy losses for (a) vanadium-redox solution and (b) 10 vol% LFP/
15 vol% LTP suspension cells cycled at C/5 system-level rate and with separator length l listed in the legend.
Fig. 5. Stack cost corresponding to 95% energy efciency including electrochemical and mechanical energy losses for (a) vanadium-redox solution and (b) 10 vol% LFP/15 vol% LTP
suspension cells cycled at C/5 system-level rate and with separator length l listed in the legend. In (a), results corresponding to 85% round trip energy efciency for 1000 mm
separator length are also shown.
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Fig. 6. (a) Stack cost corresponding to 95% energy efciency including electrochemical and mechanical energy losses for LFP/LTP suspensions with volume percentages listed in the
legend with separator lengths of 1 m. (b) (Cost of static cell cost of ow cell)/(cost of static cell)*100 for LFP/LTP suspensions with the same volume percentages and separator
length as in (a).
system) wherein the round trip efciency takes into account electrochemical and stack pumping losses. Two electrochemical couples have been selected for which sufcient data exists to model the
electrochemical efciency as a function of cell design parameters:
vanadium redox solutions and a model suspension-based Li-ion
ow chemistry using LFP/LTP. It is found that although ow batteries always have a $ kWh1 cost advantage at this subsystem
level, the advantage is a strong function of electrolyte energy
density. For the LFP/LTP case, the cost advantages decreases from
~50% to ~10% over experimentally reasonable ranges of suspension
loading, thereby informing design choices when both battery architectures are viable options.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported as part of the Joint Center for Energy
Storage Research, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S.
Department of Energy, Ofce of Science, Basic Energy Sciences. BJH
acknowledges helpful discussions with Victor Brunini on owbattery cost-analysis.
List of acronyms
LFP
LTP
Nomenclature (units)
Cst
stack cost per unit energy of static or ow battery ($
kWh1)
r
average density of anode and cathode material (kg m3)
re
theoretical gravimetric energy density (kW h kg1)
C
C-rate at which battery charges/discharges (h1)
Cp
C-rate of plug (h1)
p
plug count ()
E
total usable energy (kW h)
P
average charging/discharging power (kW)
he
energetic efciency ()
Ac
total area of current collector (m2)
As
total area of separator (m2)
Cac
total cost of anode and cathode materials ($)
Cc
total cost of current collector ($)
Cs
total cost of separator ($)
cac
average cost of anode and cathode current collectors per
unit mass ($ kg)
cs
separator cost per unit area ($ m2)
cc
current collector cost per unit area ($ m2)
n
number of cells in battery ()
1038
l
w
hp
DF
feq
Rasr
i
h
seff
keff
ko
Rs
h
Rg
T
F
a