Simulation and Mechanism Analysis of Electrochemistry of the Vanadium Redox Couples By a Rotating Disk Electrode

A redox flow battery is the one of most potential and commercial electrochemical energy storage technologies. During all types of redox couples, the vanadium couples received the remarkable attention and wildly investigated in the past two decades. Usually, the electrochemistry of vanadium redox couple is experimentally studied by electrochemical methods such as cyclic volt-ampere measurement, linear voltage scanning, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and rotating disk electrode. Beside those methods, rotating disk electrode is the most complicated and contains a large amount of electrochemical information.

A mathematical mechanism model has been developed based on the physical phenomenon and equations of diffusion, convection, electro-migration, and electrochemical reaction dynamic.  The effect of rotating rate on the performance of vanadium couples is simulated, analyzed and comprised with the experimental data. The distributions of velocity, concentration, potential, and current have been provided while the traditional experimental methods could not been done. The simulation technique not only can provides more electrochemical information, but also gives a better understanding of the electrochemical process for the teaching and research. 

Key words: redox couples, flow battery, simulation, mechanism model

Acknowledgment: This work was supported by the National High Technology R&D Program of China (2012AA053401)