Deep analysis of flow battery technology

1. Flow battery analysis

It is not rigorous to say that the flow battery is a "liquid" battery it is not a type of solid battery, which is also known from the name of light. What exactly is the flow battery?

Recently, the electric motor brand nanoFLOWCELL from Liechtenstein released the new QUANT48Volt concept sports car, using the latest low-voltage flow battery technology, the maximum power will reach 762 horsepower, the top speed of 300km / h, 0-100km / h acceleration 2.4s, the maximum cruising range or Over 1000km.

I believe that everyone has been familiar with this kind of news, but in fact, for our ordinary consumers, this kind of "surreal concept car" is still far away from us, the most important thing is the price... According to the news, The future price of this car is as high as RMB 10 million. However, the reason for mentioning this news is that this concept car uses an uncommon "flow battery".

The types of batteries for electric vehicles, the most common ones are lithium batteries, nickel-metal hydride batteries, etc. (of course, there are many small classifications, which are not mentioned one by one), and for flow batteries, the earliest brand during 2014 The concept product was launched, and the Geneva Motor Show, which opened in March, will bring the real car show. Here I will introduce you to what is the flow battery... and whether the flow battery will become the mainstream driving method of electric vehicles.

Flow battery

It is not rigorous to say that the flow battery is a "liquid" battery, it is not a type of solid battery, which is also known from the name of light. What exactly is the flow battery?

In fact, the flow battery is not used as a battery system in electric vehicles at the earliest. Japan uses liquid flow batteries for power plant peak shaving and wind energy storage facilities, which is enough to prove the strong reserves of liquid flow batteries.

Of course, if the storage capacity of the flow battery is considered to be an advantage, it can be said to be both happy and credit for pure electric vehicles. The reserves are large, the natural volume is large, and for a car, the large-capacity battery is not suitable for loading the car, which is the contradiction. (But according to the news, the concept car of the nanoFLOWCELL brand mentioned earlier has developed a high-density flow battery, which will be introduced in detail below)

2. Flow battery advantages

The following two figures clearly show the working principle of the flow battery:

In fact, the biggest difference between a liquid flow battery and a normal lithium battery pure electric vehicle is that the flow battery plays an "engine" in the overall structure of the automobile, and is not a common energy storage mechanism. The positive and negative electrolyte chambers continuously supply fuel to the flow battery, and a redox reaction occurs in the film to generate an electric current.

Having said that, everyone is sure that the most important thing is where its advantages are, that is, the advantages of the flow battery compared to lithium batteries:

The rated power and rated energy are independent. The power depends on the stack. The amount of energy depends on the electrolyte. The amount of electrolyte can be increased at will to achieve the purpose of increasing the capacity of the battery.

The battery has an indefinite storage period and a long storage life. The electrolyte is recycled, there is no problem of deterioration, but the battery separator resistance increases after long-term use.

Instantly recharge by changing the electrolyte.

In fact, there are still many advantages for the flow battery. Since there are so many advantages, why not spread? The most important reason is that the technology is not mature and the cost is very expensive, which makes it impossible to popularize.

The concept of flow battery introduced by the nanoFLOWCELL brand has been shown to the world as early as 2014, and after three years of technology development and precipitation, the concept car will finally be ushered in at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show.

What is the "magic place" of the nanoFLOWCELL brand QUANT48Volt concept car? Is it really difficult to solve the flow battery technology?

3QUANT48Volt flow battery concept car advantage

QUANT48Volt flow battery concept car

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Innovative energy

nanoFlowcellTM is the most innovative and powerful energy storage system in mobile and stationary applications today. Compared to conventional batteries, nanoFlowcells provide energy in the form of a liquid electrolyte (bi-10N) that can be stored away from the battery itself. Like conventional flow cells, positively charged and negatively charged electrolyte liquids are stored in two tanks, respectively, and pumped through a converter in a separate circuit, like a conventional flow cell or fuel cell (nano flow cell) The actual unit of the system). The two electrolyte circuits are separated only by the permeable membrane. Ion exchange occurs once the positive electrolyte solution and the negative electrolyte solution pass each other on either side of the converter membrane. This converts the combined chemical energy in the bi-ION into electricity, which can then be used directly in the electrical consumer.

Scalable energy

With the nanoFlowcellTM technology, the separation of the energy converter and the energy storage medium means that the stored energy is no longer dependent on the cell size. This is where the flow battery is different from the traditional type of battery. With nanoFlowcell?, the available energy depends on the concentration of electrolyte in the electrolyte liquid and the volume of the electrolyte container. Thanks to its unlimited scalability, the nanoFlowcell can therefore be adapted to a wide range of applications.

Fast charge and discharge

Instantaneous recharging by replacing the electrolyte is also a characteristic of the flow battery.

Innovative charge carriers

Here is one more sentence: bi-ION is a liquid energy carrier for nanoFlowcell? The power density of an electrolyte is comparable to the power density of today's lithium-ion batteries, but its energy density is five times that bi-ION is the perfect fuel for environmentally compatible and sustainable electric drives.

Bi-ION is critical to the power characteristics of the nanoFlowcellTM system. Through years of research, the company has developed a special charge carrier that makes the power and energy density of the solution liquid significantly higher than all liquid batteries currently on the market.

High energy density

The company's charge carriers have been developed to allow significantly higher concentrations of previous electrolytes in conventional flow cells. Compared to the electrolyte tank in a fixed device having a volume of several thousand liters, only the tank volume of a conventional automobile is required to achieve the performance of the QUANTiNO48VOLT. In the current state of development, an energy density of 600 Wh/l is achieved using bi-ION. The nanoFlowcellTM running on the bi-ION provides enough energy to reach five times that of a conventional electric vehicle compared to the lithium-ion battery used in most electric vehicles.

4 can mass production and technical problems in the end

All of the above are just advantages to the power system the following is based on the advantages of the concept car itself.

Wheel motor technology

The QUANT48Volt concept car is equipped with an electric motor in all four wheels, allowing four wheels to independently output torque. This is equivalent to not requiring the differential to adjust the torque between the wheels.

Long cruising range

The company has solved the problem of liquid battery density. According to the official cruising range, the new car will have a cruising range of more than 1000km, which is also the long battery life that cannot be achieved by the technical level announced today.

Powerful power system

According to official data, the new car has a maximum power of 762 hp and a top speed of 300 km/h and a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 2.4 s.

If you say shortcomings, the author believes that the biggest drawback is technical problems and expensive prices.

Although the technology of this concept car is advanced, it still cannot achieve mass production. From the perspective of development funds, the price of foreign media before a car will not be less than 10 million RMB.

The mass production level cannot be achieved, and even if there is a strong technical reserve, it will stop at the concept. As consumers, we cannot be immersed in the beautiful concepts created by these companies. Looking at the technology of today's electric vehicles, it takes a certain amount of time to achieve such a high level. It is still unknown to really bring qualified products to market.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.