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ISSN Online: 2377-424X

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-421-2

International Heat Transfer Conference 15
August, 10-15, 2014, Kyoto, Japan

Numerical Investigation of Thermal Management for Kilowatt Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries

Get access (open in a dialog) DOI: 10.1615/IHTC15.tmg.008913
pages 8227-8237

摘要

Vanadium redox flow batteries are promising for medium and large scale energy storage systems due to several intrinsic features. Among others, the most striking feature is the independence of battery capacity and power, which eases the up-scaling of the system. High efficiency and long cycle life can be achieved in large scale systems with suitable design and strict operating conditions. One of the important operating conditions is the operating temperature, which, however, is restricted to a narrow range as the result of compromising the high temperature to increase performance and to avoid the vanadium precipitation in electrolytes. Hence, thermal management is critically important in operating large scale battery systems. In this work, we propose a coupled model consisting of electrical circuit, mass and energy conservations and electrochemical reaction kinetics for a large-sized stack of kilowatt batteries. Unlike conventional lumped models reported in the literature, the present model allows the detailed temperature distribution in the battery stack to be obtained. As such, the influences of various operating conditions including current density and flow rate, as well as the heat transfer between the battery cells are studied. With the model, we are particularly interested in revealing the locations where temperature is high and leads to the degeneration of electrolyte solutions during charge-discharge cycles. The results obtained with the present model not only helps shed light into the heat transfer mechanism in kilowatt batteries, but also enables a better thermal management for large-sized batteries.