Integrated Saltwater Desalination and Energy Storage through a pH Neutral Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Battery

Camden Debruler; Wenda Wu; Kevin Cox; Brice Vanness; T. Leo Liu

doi:10.1002/adfm.202000385

Integrated Saltwater Desalination and Energy Storage through a pH Neutral Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Battery

Camden Debruler
, Wenda Wu
, Kevin Cox
, Brice Vanness
, T. Leo Liu

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

48 Scopus citations

Abstract

Here, a pH neutral aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) consisting of three electrolytes channels (i.e., an anolyte channel, a catholyte channel, and a central salt water channel) to achieve integrated energy storage and desalination is reported. Employing a low cost, chemically stable methyl viologen (MV) anolyte, and sodium ferrocyanide catholyte, this desalination AORFB is capable of desalinating simulated seawater (0.56 m NaCl) down to 0.023 m salt concentration at an energy cost of 2.4 W h L⁻¹ of fresh water—competitive with current reverse osmosis technologies. Simultaneously, the cell delivers stored energy at 79.7% efficiency with a cell voltage of 0.85 V. Furthermore, the cell is also capable of higher current operation up to 15 mA cm⁻², providing 4.55 mL of fresh water per hour. Combining energy storage and water desalination into such a bifunctional device offers the opportunity to address two growing global issues from one hardware installation.

Original language	English
Article number	2000385
Journal	Advanced Functional Materials
Volume	30
Issue number	24
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202000385
State	Published - Jun 1 2020
Externally published	Yes

Funding

The authors thank Utah State University for providing faculty startup funds to the PI (T.L.L.) and the Utah Science Technology and Research initiative (USTAR) UTAG award for supporting this study. T.L.L. acknowledges National Science Career Award (Grant No. 1847674) for supporting a portion of research assistantship for W.W. C.D. is grateful to the USU Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowship (PDRF) program to support his Ph.D. program. The authors thank Utah State University for providing faculty startup funds to the PI (T.L.L.) and the Utah Science Technology and Research initiative (USTAR) UTAG award for supporting this study. T.L.L. acknowledges National Science Career Award (Grant No. 1847674) for supporting a portion of research assistantship for W.W. C.D. is grateful to the USU Presidential Doctoral Research Fellowship (PDRF) program to support his Ph.D. program.

Keywords

desalination
energy storage
ferrocyanide
flow batteries
viologen

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10.1002/adfm.202000385

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title = "Integrated Saltwater Desalination and Energy Storage through a pH Neutral Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Battery",

abstract = "Here, a pH neutral aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) consisting of three electrolytes channels (i.e., an anolyte channel, a catholyte channel, and a central salt water channel) to achieve integrated energy storage and desalination is reported. Employing a low cost, chemically stable methyl viologen (MV) anolyte, and sodium ferrocyanide catholyte, this desalination AORFB is capable of desalinating simulated seawater (0.56 m NaCl) down to 0.023 m salt concentration at an energy cost of 2.4 W h L−1 of fresh water—competitive with current reverse osmosis technologies. Simultaneously, the cell delivers stored energy at 79.7\% efficiency with a cell voltage of 0.85 V. Furthermore, the cell is also capable of higher current operation up to 15 mA cm−2, providing 4.55 mL of fresh water per hour. Combining energy storage and water desalination into such a bifunctional device offers the opportunity to address two growing global issues from one hardware installation.",

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author = "Camden Debruler and Wenda Wu and Kevin Cox and Brice Vanness and Liu, \{T. Leo\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH \& Co. KGaA, Weinheim",

year = "2020",

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T1 - Integrated Saltwater Desalination and Energy Storage through a pH Neutral Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Battery

AU - Debruler, Camden

AU - Wu, Wenda

AU - Cox, Kevin

AU - Vanness, Brice

AU - Liu, T. Leo

PY - 2020/6/1

Y1 - 2020/6/1

N2 - Here, a pH neutral aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) consisting of three electrolytes channels (i.e., an anolyte channel, a catholyte channel, and a central salt water channel) to achieve integrated energy storage and desalination is reported. Employing a low cost, chemically stable methyl viologen (MV) anolyte, and sodium ferrocyanide catholyte, this desalination AORFB is capable of desalinating simulated seawater (0.56 m NaCl) down to 0.023 m salt concentration at an energy cost of 2.4 W h L−1 of fresh water—competitive with current reverse osmosis technologies. Simultaneously, the cell delivers stored energy at 79.7% efficiency with a cell voltage of 0.85 V. Furthermore, the cell is also capable of higher current operation up to 15 mA cm−2, providing 4.55 mL of fresh water per hour. Combining energy storage and water desalination into such a bifunctional device offers the opportunity to address two growing global issues from one hardware installation.

AB - Here, a pH neutral aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) consisting of three electrolytes channels (i.e., an anolyte channel, a catholyte channel, and a central salt water channel) to achieve integrated energy storage and desalination is reported. Employing a low cost, chemically stable methyl viologen (MV) anolyte, and sodium ferrocyanide catholyte, this desalination AORFB is capable of desalinating simulated seawater (0.56 m NaCl) down to 0.023 m salt concentration at an energy cost of 2.4 W h L−1 of fresh water—competitive with current reverse osmosis technologies. Simultaneously, the cell delivers stored energy at 79.7% efficiency with a cell voltage of 0.85 V. Furthermore, the cell is also capable of higher current operation up to 15 mA cm−2, providing 4.55 mL of fresh water per hour. Combining energy storage and water desalination into such a bifunctional device offers the opportunity to address two growing global issues from one hardware installation.

KW - desalination

KW - energy storage

KW - ferrocyanide

KW - flow batteries

KW - viologen

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DO - 10.1002/adfm.202000385

M3 - Article

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JO - Advanced Functional Materials

JF - Advanced Functional Materials

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M1 - 2000385

ER -

Integrated Saltwater Desalination and Energy Storage through a pH Neutral Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Battery

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