Long-Cycling Aqueous Organic Redox Flow Battery (AORFB) Toward Sustainable and Safe Energy Storage

Redox flow batteries (RFBs) are a viable technology to store renewable energy in the form of electricity that can be supplied to electricity grids. However, widespread implementation of traditional RFBs, such as vanadium and Zn-Br RFBs, is limited due to a number of challenges related to materials, including low abundance and high costs of redox-active metals, expensive separators, active material crossover, and corrosive and hazardous electrolytes. To address these challenges, we demonstrate a neutral aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) technology utilizing a newly designed cathode electrolyte containing a highly water-soluble ferrocene molecule. Specifically, water-soluble (ferrocenylmethyl)trimethylammonium chloride (FcNCl, 4.0 M in HO, 107.2 Ah/L, and 3.0 M in 2.0 NaCl, 80.4 Ah/L) and N-ferrocenylmethyl-N,N,N,N,N-pentamethylpropane-1,2-diaminium dibromide, (FcNBr, 3.1 M in HO, 83.1 Ah/L, and 2.0 M in 2.0 M NaCl, 53.5 Ah/L) were synthesized through structural decoration of hydrophobic ferrocene with synergetic hydrophilic functionalities including an ammonium cation group and a halide anion. When paired with methyl viologen (MV) as an anolyte, resulting FcNCl/MV and FcNBr/MV AORFBs were operated in noncorrosive neutral NaCl supporting electrolytes using a low-cost anion-exchange membrane. These ferrocene/MV AORFBs are characterized as having high theoretical energy density (45.5 Wh/L) and excellent cycling performance from 40 to 100 mA/cm. Notably, the FcNCl/MV AORFBs (demonstrated at 7.0 and 9.9 Wh/L) exhibited unprecedented long cycling performance, 700 cycles at 60 mA/cm with 99.99% capacity retention per cycle, and delivered power density up to 125 mW/cm. These AORFBs are built from earth-abundant elements and are environmentally benign, thus representing a promising choice for sustainable and safe energy storage.