New Class of Flow Batteries for Terrestrial and Aerospace Energy Storage Applications

Future sustainable energy generation technologies such as photovoltaic and wind farms require advanced energy storage systems on a massive scale to make the alternate (green) energy options practical. The daunting requirements of such large-scale energy systems — such as long operating and cycle life, safety, and low cost — are not adequately met by state-of-the-art energy storage technologies such as vanadium flow cells, lead-acid, and zinc-bromine batteries. Much attention is being paid to redox batteries — specifically to the vanadium redox battery (VRB) — due to their simplicity, low cost, and good life characteristics compared to other related battery technologies.