NSF Award
2212545
The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is derived from improving the resilience of millions of homes against power outages. In recent years, an increasing number of extreme weather events has caused a surge in natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes, many of which knocked the power grid down—leaving thousands of families without electricity for days or weeks. A strategy to address the vulnerability of the national grid is to improve the energy self-sufficiency of houses and other residential complexes, for example, by combining roof-top solar arrays with long-duration energy storage systems. Lithium-ion batteries are usually the devices of choice for storing solar energy. Unfortunately, fire safety risks and high production costs have limited the adoption of lithium-ion batteries in residential areas. At present, only about 20% of home-solar owners have installed energy-storage devices. This PFI-TT project aims to develop fire-safe and low-cost iron-chromium redox flow batteries that can be widely used in residential areas. The batteries developed in this project may be about ~30% cheaper than lithium-ion batteries and do not contain self-igniting fire hazards inside the cells. <br/><br/>The proposed project has two research and development goals. The first goal is to synthesize and test the novel perfluorophosphonic acid-zirconium polymer membranes that transport protons but reduce unwanted metal electrolyte crossovers. Such membranes may help address the electrolyte crossover challenge that has prevented the development and commercialization of novel iron-chromium redox flow batteries. The fabrication of fluoropolymers will be carried out by copolymerizing hexafluoropropylene with a novel perfluorobutene monomer that is synthesized in the laboratory. The second goal is the design, construction, and evaluation of a small iron-chromium redox flow battery stack at 7 kW, which can be sold to a residential solar owner to support existing rooftop solar panels. The cell design parameters such as the dimension of single cells, gaskets, and flow channels will be systematically investigated to optimize the performance of the battery stack. If this PFI-TT project is successful, this research may lead to the commercialization of fire-safe and low-cost iron-chromium batteries for residential energy storage and discovery of new proton-conductive fluoropolymers that can be widely used in fuel cells, electrolyzers, chlor-alkali cells, and other types of flow batteries.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
