Understanding the Role of Electrode Thickness on Redox Flow Cell Performance**

Abstract

Abstract The electrode thickness is a critical design parameter to engineer high performance redox flow cells by impacting the available surface area for reactions, current and potential distributions, and required pumping power. To date, redox flow cell assemblies employ repurposed off‐the‐shelf fibrous electrodes which feature a broad range of thicknesses. However, comprehensive guidelines to select the optimal electrode thickness for a given reactor architecture remain elusive. Here, we investigate the effect of the electrode thickness in the range of 200–1100 μm on the cell performance by stacking electrode layers in four different flow cell configurations – Freudenberg paper and ELAT cloth electrodes combined with flow‐through and interdigitated flow fields. We employ a suite of polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and pressure drop measurements together with pore network modeling simulations to correlate the electrode thickness for various reactor designs to the electrochemical and hydraulic performance. We find that thicker electrodes (420 μm paper electrodes and 812 μm cloth electrodes) are beneficial in combination with flow‐through flow fields, whereas when using interdigitated flow fields, thinner electrodes (210 μm paper electrodes and 406 μm cloth electrodes) result in a better current density and pressure drop trade‐off. We hope our findings will aid researchers and technology practitioners in designing their electrochemical flow cells under convective operation.

Keywords

• electrode thickness
• flow field geometry
• pore network modeling
• porous electrode microstructure
• redox flow batteries