Crossover-tolerant coated platinum catalysts in hydrogen/bromine redox flow battery

Kobby Saadi, Pilkhaz Nanikashvili, Zhanna Tatus-Portnoy, Samuel Hardisty, Victor Shokhen, Melina Zysler, David Zitoun

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

The hydrogen-bromine redox flow battery's (H2–Br2 RFB) advantages of high energy capacity, high round-trip conversion efficiency and low cost, make it an optimal candidate for large-scale energy storage systems. The crossover of bromide species through the membrane degrades the performance of the H2–Br2 RFB by poisoning the catalyst responsible for the hydrogen evolution and oxidation reactions. Herein we propose the new concept of a selective catalyst coating layer that mitigates the effect of bromide crossover. The polymerization of dopamine on the catalyst surface yields a nanoscale conformal polydopamine layer which acts as a semi-permeable barrier to block bromide species. The H2–Br2 RFB with the coated catalyst shows a low capacity fading of 6% at 300 mA cm−2 after exposure to 4.5 M charged electrolyte for 2 h. Even the beginning of life polarization curves show the benefit of catalyst coating with a high peak power of ∼550 mW cm−2. Hence, the catalyst coating opens a way to solve the crossover issue in H2–Br2 RFB technology.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)84-91
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Power Sources
Volume422
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 May 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.

Funding

The authors are grateful to the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) for financial support of the project through the German-Israeli Battery and Electrochemistry Research Program. S.H. acknowledges the Horizon 2020 Flowcamp ITN for his financial support. The authors acknowledge Dr. Michal Ejgenberg for her kind assistance with XPS.

FundersFunder number
Horizon 2020 Flowcamp ITN
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme765289
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Ministry of science and technology, Israel

    Keywords

    • Bromine
    • Catalyst
    • Electrocatalysis
    • Electrochemical energy storage
    • Nanoparticle
    • Redox-flow battery

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