Highly Active Electrode With Efficiently Added Surface Oxygen Groups for a Vanadium Redox Flow Battery

Abstract

Higher power output by a lower kinetic resistance of the vanadium redox flow battery is needed for its commercialization. In this study, we focused on the air oxidation conditions of carbon paper, which is the electrode material, to reduce the kinetic resistance. The air oxidation is considered to affect the number of surface oxygen groups such as the phenol-type hydroxyl group due to oxidation of the carbon fiber. The surface oxygen groups may correspond to the active sites for the charge/discharge reaction. We quantitatively evaluated the number of surface oxygen groups by temperature-programmed desorption. In addition, we measured the double-layer capacitances of the carbon papers, which may reflect the surface area of the carbon fiber. The single-cell performances, i.e., current–voltage curves and charge–discharge profile, of the electrodes were studied. The air oxidized carbon paper, heat-treated at 500 °C for 3 h (8.4% mass decrease from the pristine sample), showed the highest power density (960 mW cm−2) in this study with thin electrode material (ca., 0.2 mm for one sheet). The negative half-reaction was enhanced by air oxidation. This result could be explained by the reduction of the kinetic resistance by increasing the number of phenol groups, and this power output was relatively high as the vanadium redox flow battery by using a commercial carbon paper and the standard flow field.