• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.11
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• pp.3589-3592
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• 2012

Carbon composite bipolar plates with various carbon black contents were prepared by a compression molding method. The electrical conductivity and electrochemical stability of the bipolar plates have been evaluated. It is found that the electrical conductivity increases with increasing carbon black contents up to 15 wt %. When the carbon black contents are greater than 15 wt %, the electrical conductivity decreases because of a poor compatibility between epoxy resin and carbon black, and a weakening of compaction in the carbon composite bipolar plate. Based on the results, it could be concluded that there are optimum carbon black contents when preparing the carbon composite bipolar plate. Corrosion tests show that the carbon composite bipolar plate with 15 wt % carbon black exhibits better electrochemical stability than a graphite bipolar plate under a highly acidic condition. When the optimized carbon composite bipolar plate is applied to vanadium redox flow cells, the performance of flow cells with the carbon composite bipolar plate is comparable to that of flow cells with the graphite bipolar plate.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2019

The redox flow battery (RFB) is a large-capacity energy storage equipment, and the vanadium redox flow cell is a typical RFB, but VRFB is expensive. Iron-chrome RFBs are economical because they use low-cost active materials, but their low performance is an urgent problem. One of the reasons for the low performance is the crossover of the active materials. In this study, the sulfonated Poly (ether ether ketone) (sPEEK) membrane, which is a hydrocarbon membrane, was used instead of the fluorine membrane to reduce the crossover of the active materials. The chromium ion permeability of the sPEEK membrane was $1.8{\times}10^{-6}cm^2/min$, which was about 1/33 of that of the Nafion membrane. Thus, it was shown that the use of the sPEEK membrane instead of the fluorine membrane could solve the high active material crossover problem. The activation energy of iron diffusion through the sPEEK membrane was 24.9 kJ/mol, which was about 66% of Nafion membrane. And that the e-PTFE support in the polymer membrane reduces the active material crossover through Iron-Chrome Redox Flow Battery (ICRFB).

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2018.07a
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• pp.231-233
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• 2018

바나듐 산화 환원 유동 배터리는 긴 수명주기와 높은 에너지효율로 리튬 이온 배터리를 대체할 차세대 배터리로 주목받고 있다. 에너지가 저장되는 전해질을 순환시키면서 충전 과방전이 이루어진다는 이차전지 인 만큼 유지 보수 비용을 획기적으로 절감할 수 있고 사용자의 요구조건에 따라 출력과 에너지 용량을 매우 쉽게 조절할 수 있다는 장점이 있다. 하지만, 바나듐 산화 환원 유동 배터리를 다양한 어플리케이션에 적용하기 위하여 바나듐 배터리 운용에서 여러 가지 요소들을 고려하여야 한다. 본 논문에서는 충전 및 방전을 지속했을 때의 용량 감소하는 바나듐 산화 환원 유동 배터리의 특성을 고려하여 가장 까다로운 문제 중 하나인 휴지 기간에서의 자가 방전에 대해 온도와 SOC에 따라 특성 분석을 실시하였다.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.20-32
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• 2022

This study implemented a chelating agent (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, EDTA) in purification to obtain high-purity vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅) for use in VRFB (Vanadium Redox Flow Battery). V₂O₅ (powder) was produced through the precipitation recovery of ammonium metavanadate (NH₄VO₃) from a vanadium solution, which was prepared using a low-purity vanadium raw material. The initial purity of the powder was estimated to be 99.7%. However, the use of a chelating agent improved its purity up to 99.9% or higher. It was conjectured that the added chelating agent reacted with the impurity ions to form a complex, stabilizing them. This improved the selectivity for vanadium in the recovery process. However, the prepared V₂O₅ powder exhibited higher contents of K, Mn, Fe, Na, and Al than those in the standard counterparts, thus necessitating additional research on its impurity separation. Furthermore, the vanadium electrolyte was prepared using the high-purity V₂O₅ powder in a newly developed direct electrolytic process. Its analytical properties were compared with those of commercial electrolytes. Owing to the high concentration of the K, Ca, Na, Al, Mg, and Si impurities in the produced vanadium electrolyte, the purity was analyzed to be 99.97%, lower than those (99.98%) of its commercial counterparts. Thus, further research on optimizing the high-purity V₂O₅ powder and electrolyte manufacturing processes may yield a process capable of commercialization.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.181-187
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• 2022

As the charges/discharges of VRFB-ESS were repeated during 150cycles or more, the capacity of electrolyte in VRFB-ESS was decreased little by little. It results from the decreasing of the level of anolyte and the increasing of the valance value of the catholyte. Then, we tried to recover the capacity loss with 3 different ways. The first way was that the levels of anolyte and catholyte were allowed to be evenly equalized when the difference in the levels of two different electrolytes were severe. The second one was to lessen the valance value of the catholyte through the reduction reaction to 4-valant ions of 5-valant ions in the catholyte with the reductant, oxalic acid. The last one was that the all electrolytes of analyte and catholyte were allowed to be electro-chemically reduced to 3.5 of the valance value by oxidizing new electrolyte with 3.5 valance ions. The last way was the most effective to recover the capacity loss.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.155-161
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• 2017

Carbon felts were prepared under various thermal conditions to improve the electrochemical properties of vanadium redox flow batteries. The number of C-O and/or C-OH functional groups on the surface of the electrodes treated under airless conditions was much larger than that of the untreated and partially oxygen-treated electrodes. The carbon felt treated under airless conditions had the lowest surface area. The overall kinetic properties of the redox reaction were greatly improved for the carbon felt treated under airless conditions; i.e., the reversibility of the anodic and cathodic reactions associated with the $VO_2{^+}/VO^{2+}$ couple became more reversible. Single-cell tests indicated that the carbon felt exhibited an excellent discharge capacity of $3.1Ah{\cdot}g^{-1}$ at $40mA{\cdot}cm^{-2}$, and the corresponding Coulombic, voltage, and energy efficiencies were 89.5%, 91.8%, and 82.2%, respectively.