Three dimensional multi-physical modeling study of interdigitated flow field in porous electrode for vanadium redox flow battery

The flow field design of vanadium redox flow battery is a critical issue for performance optimization of the battery. In this work, an interdigitated flow field is designed in carbon felt porous electrode with active area of 57.5 cm2 and simulated by a three-dimensional multi-physical model. The “leaf” shaped ionic concentration and voltage distribution patterns are observed in the numerical results and analyzed to understand the cell performance. Compared with other two conventional designs, the interdigitated flow field in bipolar plate and no flow field designs, fluid pressure drop of flow field designed in electrode is the least and the system efficiency shows the best over the major operation range of electrolyte flow rates. The flow field designed in electrode greatly lowers sealing pressure demand for vanadium redox flow battery with better reliability and shows potential benefit for large-scale cell stack design and energy storage system application.