Cost-driven materials selection criteria for redox flow battery electrolytes

Redox flow batteries show promise for grid-scale energy storage applications but are presently too expensive for widespread adoption. Electrolyte material costs constitute a sizeable fraction of the redox flow battery price. As such, this work develops a techno-economic model for redox flow batteries that accounts for redox-active material, salt, and solvent contributions to the electrolyte cost. Benchmark values for electrolyte constituent costs guide identification of design constraints. Nonaqueous battery design is sensitive to all electrolyte component costs, cell voltage, and area-specific resistance. Design challenges for nonaqueous batteries include minimizing salt content and dropping redox-active species concentration requirements. Aqueous battery design is sensitive to only redox-active material cost and cell voltage, due to low area-specific resistance and supporting electrolyte costs. Increasing cell voltage and decreasing redox-active material cost present major materials selection challenges for aqueous batteries. This work minimizes cost-constraining variables by mapping the battery design space with the techno-economic model, through which we highlight pathways towards low price and moderate concentration. Furthermore, the techno-economic model calculates quantitative iterations of battery designs to achieve the Department of Energy battery price target of $100 per kWh and highlights cost cutting strategies to drive battery prices down further. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.