Asymmetric batteries based on customized positive and negative electrodes-an effective strategy to further improve the performance of vanadium redox flow batteries

There are significant differences in the cathodic and anodic kinetics of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), thus the use of a single composition and structure of electrode materials is unbefitting according to the barrel principle. Herein, W and Sb based electrocatalysts are evenly embedded into the electrospun carbon nanofibers (ECNFs), and the active functional groups and surface defects of the W-ECNFs and Sb-ECNFs electrodes are increased effectively, which resulted in a significant improvement in their hydrophilicity, specific surface area and electrocatalytic activity towards the VO2+/VO2+ and V3+/V2+redox reactions. The electrode reaction rate constant k and diffusion coefficient D of the positive and negative reactions on W-ECNFs and Sb-ECNFs are more similar and closely matched, which is more conducive to the effective improvement of battery performance. As a results, the asymmetric battery with W-ECNFs and Sb-ECNFs as positive and negative electrode shows the highest energy efficiency of 81.33% at 200 mA/cm2, higher than that of the VRFBs with pristine ECNFs as both two electrodes (75.66%) or that only optimizing one electrode (79.76% and 78.15%). The excellent battery performance further verifies the feasibility of constructing asymmetric batteries according to the difference of the positive and negative reaction kinetics in VRFBs.