Roberts, D. orcid.org/0000-0001-6565-0459, Fraser, E.J. orcid.org/0000-0001-9592-9071, Cruden, A. et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Predicting the cost of a 24 V soluble lead flow battery optimised for PV applications. Journal of Power Sources, 570. 233058. ISSN 0378-7753
Abstract
Providing reliable electricity from small-scale renewable power is an important challenge for emerging economies. The soluble lead flow battery (SLFB) is a promising battery for this application, as it has a simple architecture making it relatively robust, and a lifetime of 2000 cycles demonstrated at the cell level. Also, the electrolyte is manufacturable directly from spent lead acid batteries. There is a need for techno-economic models to allow the cost/performance of a complete system to be defined and optimised. Such a model is defined here for the first time and used in a multi-objective optimisation to design a 24 V system for a charging hub in Sierra Leone. A 4 h duration was found to be optimal, and electrolyte for a 3.5 kW/14 kWh system would fit in a 1000 L IBC. Methanesulfonic acid was found to be the largest cost component of the 4 h system, with graphitic bipolar plates next. Both have low raw material costs, and in an optimistic scenario a total component cost of <£50/kWh would be achieved, half that of current NMC Li-ion cells. The greatest technical risk to achieving low cost is deposit thickness of lead dioxide. This important research gap should be addressed.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number THE FARADAY INSTITUTION FIEE- 002 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 08 Jun 2023 14:33 |
Last Modified: | 08 Jun 2023 14:33 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2023.233058 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2023.233058 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:200040 |