A carbon coating cathode for high-performance Zinc-Bromine flow Battery

Abstract

Zinc-Bromine flow Batteries (ZBBs) require cathode materials having a high performance against bromine. This paper describes cathode electrode by a simple carbon coating method. This method is made of 3 steps. First step is making a carbon slurry (mixing 5 wt% of carbon powder, 4 wt% of Polyvinylidene Fluoride (PVDF) and solvent (NMP) for 8 hrs at 30 degrees C). And the second step is to coat the surface of a graphite foil (cathode electrode) with the carbon slurry maintaining 100 mu m of thickness. The final step is heating electrode covered with carbon slurry during 4 hrs at 120 degrees C for decoupling solvent. The experimental results show that the proposed (carbon coating) electrode allows higher chemical stability and durability for long-time cell operations and also provides a high surface area for improving bromine-reduction reaction in a cathode half-cell. This work provides a new insight into the design of a high-performance cathode for cost effective and reliable ZBB.