New Alkalescent Electrolyte Chemistry for Zinc‐Ferricyanide Flow Battery

Abstract

Alkaline zinc‐ferricyanide flow batteries are efficiency and economical as energy storage solutions. However, they suffer from low energy density and short calendar life. The strongly alkaline conditions (3 mol L‐1 OH‐) reduce the solubility of ferri/ferro‐cyanide (normally only 0.4 mol L‐1 at 25 oC) and induce the formation of zinc dendrites at the anode. Here, we report a new zinc‐ferricyanide flow battery based on a mild alkalescent (pH 12) electrolyte. Using a chelating agent to rearrange ferri/ferro‐cyanide ion‐solvent interactions and improve salt dissociation, we increased the solubility of ferri/ferro‐cyanide to 1.7 mol L‐1 and prevented zinc dendrites. Our battery has an energy density of ~74 Wh L‐1 at 60 oC and remains stable for 1800 cycles (1800 hours) at 0 oC and for >1400 cycles (2300 hours) at 25 oC. An alkalescent zinc‐ferricyanide cell stack built using this alkalescent electrolyte stably delivers 608 W of power for ~40 days.