ABSTRACT

1. INTRODUCTON
In our daily life uses of electricity power becomes essential. Air conditioners, industries,
home appliances, hospitals requires electricity to run continuously. Statistics showing 78% of
generated power is coming from fossil fuel usage and approximately 13% of generated power is
generated from renewable resources. Climate change is one of critical environmental issues of
recent times. Researchers telling that there is a strong links between greenhouse gases and
their effect on climate change. The percentage of carbon dioxide in greenhouse gases is
approximately 60%. And CO2 is main product in the exhaust of fossil fuel engine. World
population increases averagely 0.9% per year so further energy demand will increase. Because
of this emissions of greenhouse gases increases. This rising issue need a solution.
The solution can be shifting of power generation from fossil fuels to renewable resources
like wind energy and solar energy. But generation of power by using wind and solar radiation is
not continuous. The wind pattern changes on daily basis, weekly basis or monthly basis. And in
case of solar energy also same means it is intermittent on different scales like daily, weekly and
monthly. You can see the intermittent nature of wind and solar energy production at particular
location on particular day in Fig.1.

Fig.1.The intermittent nature of solar and wind and usage of power.

When power usage is less than the rated power production, then this surplus energy is
stored by some mechanism and when in peak hours if usage of power is more than produced,
then we use stored energy to overcome power shortage problem. In design of an energy
storage it is better to consider the characteristics such as scalability, fast response time, storage
capacity, low cost and high efficiency, long life etc.
The energy storages can be mechanical based (pumped hydro, compressed air, flywheel),
chemical energy storage (battery), electromagnetic energy storage (SMES), Electrostatic energy
storage, thermal energy (sensible, latent) and biological (plants, animals). If size is constraint we
go for secondary batteries instead of thermal energy storage or pumped hydro energy. If
intermittency is short term then we use Li- ion battery, for mid durations- Redox flow batteries
and for long durations- pumped hydro energy storage or compressed air energy storage.
Lithium ion battery energy density is 250-670 W h/L whereas for VRFB it is 15-25 W h/ L. Li ion
cell can deliver up to 3.6 volts whereas VRFB nominal cell voltage is 1.15 V to 1.55 V. As Li Cl
(lithium ion) poisonous towards humans so it is better to consider the importance of redox flow
batteries over Li-ion cell batteries even though RFB energy density is three times less than Li-ion
cell. And also Lithium ion cell has disadvantages as

 If once manufactured, it starts degrading from that instant and its life will be around 2
to 3 years or 300-500 cycles.
 Highly sensitive towards temperatures, high temperatures causes Li batteries degrade at
faster rate.
 If it completely discharged it will be ruined.
 A lithium ion battery pack need computer setup to control or manage it. This makes it
very expensive.
 There is a possibility of thermal runaway (An increase in temperature causes further
increase in temperature of cell) and it is dangerous.
 If it fails by any chance, it will burst into flame.

Redox flow batteries construction is different from lithium battery. In flow battery
electrolyte flows continuously by using external pumps whereas in case of lithium ion
battery electrolyte does not move. In flow battery the electrolyte either pass over the
electrode or pass through the electrode. Examples for redox flow battery are iron-
chromium flow battery, bromine-polysulfide solution flow battery and all-vanadium flow
batteries etc. Most of research was done on all-vanadium flow batteries.
You can see the configuration of aqua vanadium redox flow battery in Fig.2 two
electrolyte tanks are there which are placed outside of cell. One electrolyte is positive
electrolyte and other one is negative electrolyte and they pass through/over respective
electrodes. These two electrode placed in different half cells. Positive electrolyte solution is
prepared as result of mixing of vanadium pentoxide, sulfuric acid and water. Negative
electrolyte solution result of mixing of vanadium trioxide with sulfuric acid and water.
Fig. 2. The schematic diagram of VRFB
Flow cell placed in between two electrolyte tanks and ion exchange membrane placed at center
of cell and either side of this membrane called as half cell. Most of the time used electrode is
carbon because it has high chemical resistance. It is better to go for porus electrode to have
high specific surface area so that electrolyte exposure will be more. This electrode acts as a
catalyst for redox reactions. Electrolyte flow is same while charging and discharging of battery
only electro chemical reaction change and they are reversible. In Fig.2 we can see in positive
electrolyte V5+ ion becomes V4+ by absorbing an electron while discharging and this reaction is
reduction. In negative electrolyte V2+ changes to V3+while discharging and it is an oxidation
reaction. You can see the electrons motion in circuit. While charging the above reactions will be
in reverse direction and even hydrogen cations moves in opposite direction through the ion
exchange membrane. The factors important in VRFB are flow rate of electrolyte, vanadium
concentration, configuration (2 or 4 tanks) and current density, size of cell. Flow rate can be
altered so that amount of time vanadium ions spend through electrode change.
Wide investigated research conclude that aqua flow batteries have low energy density and
narrow electro chemical window. So non-aqueous flow batteries have been proposed, which
will provide more energy density and large electro chemical window compared to aqua based
ones.

2. Experimental setup
2.1. Preparation of reline DES solution
First take a beaker and in that mix choline chloride and urea at 1:2 molar ratio. This
solution as reline deep eutectic solvent solution and its melting point is 12o C. Then we add
active redox meatal ions to reline solution because these ions have ability to exist at different
valance state.
In one beaker, 0.1 moles of anhydrous vanadium chloride is added into reline DES solution and
it acts as negative electrolyte. In another beaker add 0.1 moles of anhydrous iron chloride into
prepared reline DES solution and this acts as a positive electrolyte. Above electrolytes are
continuously heated at 100oC and stirred so that choline chloride salt will dissolved fully and we
will get uniform solution. Choline chloride is a salt which has affinity towards absorbing water
(hygroscopic). So the above electrolytes are placed in an oven at 50 oC for 24 hours before using
it.

2.2. Key parameters test