Vanadium-based battery technology

Developing technologies in vanadium science provide the basis for the last two chapters of this book. Vanadium(V) in various forms of polymeric vanadium pen-toxide is showing great promise in nanomaterial research. This area of research is in its infancy, but already potential applications have been identified. Vanadium-based redox batteries have been developed and are finding their way into both large-and small-scale applications. Lithium/silver vanadium oxide batteries for implantable devices have important medical applications. 

Fundamentally, both MEA-based and membraneless cells require two electrodes with an ionically conductive electrolyte between them. It is therefore proposed that a volumetric power density normalized by the essential volume of the electrochani-cal chamber, including both electrodes and the separating electrolyte, would be the most universally applicable metric for these devices. This metric captures any variations in electrolyte channel separation and electrode thickness with the only assumption being that the inlet/outlet flow field manifolds and other structural support elements are comparable between cells. With this new convention, the key microfluidic electrochemical cell technologies with the highest power densities reported to date were converted where possible and presented in Table 6.1. For comparative purposes, estimates for a typical MEA-based vanadium redox battery (VRB) [17, 18] and a DMFC [19] are also included. 

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