The effect of additives on the performance of aqueous organic redox flow battery using quinoxaline and ferrocyanide redox couple

In this study, the effect of additives on the performance of aqueous organic redox flow battery (AORFB) using quinoxaline and ferrocyanide as active materials in alkaline supporting electrolyte is investigated. Quinoxaline shows the lowest redox potential (-0.97 V) in KOH supporting electrolyte, while when quinoxaline and ferrocyanide are used as the target active materials, the cell voltage of this redox combination is 1.3 V. When the single cell tests of AORFBs using 0.1 M active materials in 1 M KCl supporting electrolyte and Nafion 117 membrane are implemented, it does not work properly because of the side reaction of quinoxaline. To reduce or prevent the side reaction of quinoxaline, the two types of additives are considered. They are the potassium sulfate as electrophile additive and potassium iodide as nucleophilie additive. Of them, when the single cell tests of AORFBs using potassium iodide as additive dissolved in quinoxaline solution are performed, the capacity loss rate is reduced to 0.21 Ah L-1 per cycle and it is better than that of the single cell test of AORFB operated without additive (0.29 Ah L-1 per cycle).