UoW team 3D prints nature-inspired electrode to boost flow battery performance
Diamond-lattice geometry produced with 3D printing increased redox flow battery performance by 52% in University of Waterloo lab and prototype testing
Researchers at the University of Waterloo have used 3D printing to redesign a core component of redox flow batteries (RFBs), producing a porous electrode geometry that increases performance by 52% over conventional designs in laboratory testing.
The team, led by chemical engineering professor Maxime van der Heijden, applied triply periodic minimal surface geometries to gain finer control over how liquid electrolyte moves through the battery and reaches the surfaces where energy-storing reactions occur.
RFBs store energy in liquid electrolytes held in external tanks rather than in solid materials, using water-based chemistry instead of the flammable materials found in lithium-ion batteries. That structure allows storage capacity to scale by adding larger tanks, a property the researchers said suits grid-level renewable energy storage as more electricity comes from intermittent wind and solar sources.
“Instead of storing energy in solid materials, they store energy in liquid electrolytes held in external tanks,” said Van der Heijden, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. “The amount of stored energy can be increased simply by using larger tanks, making them well-suited for large-scale renewable energy storage and grid applications.”
The researchers tested several TPMS geometries for the porous RFB electrodes and found that a ‘diamond’ configuration performed best. They produced the structures on a digital light-processing 3D printer, then heat-treated the printed parts to convert them into conductive carbon electrodes capable of carrying electricity.
“With 3D printing, we can design the internal structure of an electrode in ways that are difficult to achieve using conventional manufacturing,” Van der Heijden said. “That gives us much greater control over how the liquid moves through the battery and reaches the surfaces where the energy-storing reactions take place.”
The team tested the printed electrodes in laboratory flow-cell experiments and in a working vanadium redox flow battery, confirming the designs functioned in an operating system.
Future research will now focus on increasing electrode surface area, refining manufacturing methods and exploring additional design tools for electrode structures.
