Performance of an environmentally benign acid base flow battery at high energy density

An increasing fraction of energy is generated by intermittent sources such as wind and sun. A straightforward solution to keep the electricity grid reliable is the connection of large-scale electricity storage to this grid. Current battery storage technologies, while providing promising energy and power densities, suffer from a large environmental footprint, safety issues, and technological challenges. In this paper, the acid base flow battery is re-established as an environmental friendly means of storing electricity using electrolyte consisting of NaCl salt. To achieve a high specific energy, we have performed charge and discharge cycles over the entire pH range (0–14) at several current densities. We demonstrate stable performance at high energy density (2.9 Wh L−1). Main energy dissipation occurs by unwanted proton and hydroxyl ion transport and leads to low coulombic efficiencies (13%–27%).