Materials-to-System Analysis for Grid-Based Electrochemical Energy Storage: Lithium-Polysulfide Hybrid Flow Battery

Energy storage systems are crucial for extensive deployment of renewable energy such as solar and wind systems and huge demand on the electrical grid to recharge electric vehicles. Scalable energy storage with low cost and high energy density will be a key to meet these challenges [1]. Lithium-polysulfide (Li-PS) flow batteries are of particular interest due to their scalability, high potential chemistries, and potentially low cost for grid storage applications [2].

Here we present a materials-to-system analysis of the Li-PS flow battery by using techno-economic model which combines electrochemical performance and cost calculation model to examine feasibility for grid storage application. In the system, lithium polysulfide in ether-based solvent and metallic lithium are used as the catholyte and anolyte, respectively [3]. The model examines the correlation between performance and cost as considering the physical property limitations of the system components, Figure 1. Additionally, the consequences on cost and energy density from change in system properties such as redox material concentration, potential, and specific capacity are assessed to probe design phase space for the requirements of an application.

Figure 1. Summary flow of the techno-economic model

Acknowledgments

This work was supported as part of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences. The submitted abstract has been created by UChicago Argonne, LLC, Operator of Argonne National Laboratory (“Argonne”). Argonne, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, is operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

References

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[2] Yuan Yang, Guangyuan Zheng and Yi Cui, Energy Environ. Sci., 2013, 6, 1552-1558.

[3] Kevin G. Gallagher, Paul A. Nelson, Denis W. Dees, Journal of Power Sources 196 (2011) 2289–2297