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A Thermally‐Regenerative Ammonia‐Based Flow Battery for Electrical Energy Recovery from Waste Heat
Author(s) -
Zhu Xiuping,
Rahimi Mohammad,
Gorski Christopher A.,
Logan Bruce
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.201501513
Subject(s) - waste heat , battery (electricity) , flow battery , power density , carnot cycle , ammonia , materials science , thermal energy , maximum power principle , nuclear engineering , energy transformation , energy conversion efficiency , heat exchanger , environmental science , chemistry , voltage , thermodynamics , electrical engineering , power (physics) , optoelectronics , physics , engineering , organic chemistry
Large amounts of low‐grade waste heat (temperatures <130 °C) are released during many industrial, geothermal, and solar‐based processes. Using thermally‐regenerative ammonia solutions, low‐grade thermal energy can be converted to electricity in battery systems. To improve reactor efficiency, a compact, ammonia‐based flow battery (AFB) was developed and tested at different solution concentrations, flow rates, cell pairs, and circuit connections. The AFB achieved a maximum power density of 45 W m −2 (15 kW m −3 ) and an energy density of 1260 Wh m anolyte −3 , with a thermal energy efficiency of 0.7 % (5 % relative to the Carnot efficiency). The power and energy densities of the AFB were greater than those previously reported for thermoelectrochemical and salinity‐gradient technologies, and the voltage or current could be increased using stacked cells. These results demonstrated that an ammonia‐based flow battery is a promising technology to convert low‐grade thermal energy to electricity.