Title: A study on different flow channel shapes in a vanadium redox flow battery with serpentine flow field

Authors: İlker Kayalı; Gülşah Elden

Addresses: Department of Quality and Strategic Planning, Kapadokya University, Ürgüp 50420, Turkey; Department of Energy System Engineering, Erciyes University, 38039 Kayseri, Turkey ' Department of Energy System Engineering, Erciyes University, 38039 Kayseri, Turkey

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the different flow channel shapes on battery performance, charge, mass and momentum transports in a vanadium redox flow battery with serpentine flow field during discharge process. In line with this purpose, the four different 2-D models having the four different flow channel shapes are developed. These flow channel shapes are rectangle, square, circle and trapezoid, respectively. The obtained results are shown that the best discharge capacity, electrode and electrolyte potential distributions are achieved in the model with the trapezoid channel shape since this channel shape provides a good electrolyte distribution due to having a deeper channel depth. Furthermore, it is brought out that there is a small difference in the concentration distributions of vanadium species (V²⁺ and VO⁺₂ for all channel shapes and the near-uniform concentration distributions (V³⁺ and VO²⁺) for both porous electrodes are obtained with the model with trapezoid channel shape during discharge process.

Keywords: channel shape effects; serpentine flow field; vanadium redox flow battery; numerical model; mass and charge transports.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSA.2021.119692

International Journal of Sustainable Aviation, 2021 Vol.7 No.4, pp.334 - 353

Received: 21 Apr 2021
Accepted: 31 Jul 2021
Published online: 14 Dec 2021 *

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