What are the advantages of vanadium batteries compared to lithium batteries

1. Convenient to scale. A set of system can be as big as your home freezer, or as big as a substation in your community, with enough electricity for your home for a day to a year. You can design it whatever you want. In other words, regardless of the requirements of the energy storage system in the project, engineers can easily and happily design accordingly. Don't underestimate this. Lithium batteries are very envious of these advantages. The energy storage material of the lithium battery is coated on the surface of the current collector to make the electrode. The process and performance are designed by the chemist before the show, and it is difficult to adjust according to the detailed engineering project. 2. Long service life. The life of lithium batteries on the market is about 1000-5000 times. The energy storage principle of lithium batteries is mainly the intercalation and deintercalation of lithium ions on solid-state electrodes. The electrode material undergoes stress changes under repeated insertion and insertion of lithium ions, and cracks appear over time and eventually lead to recession. However, the charging and discharging mechanism of vanadium batteries is the change of valence, which is a completely reversible process. The number of cycles detected in the laboratory is counted in units of 10,000. Taking into account the life of other components in the system, it can be completely done in half a century. 3. Better security. Lithium battery packs require a complex battery management system to guard against overcharge, overdischarge, and overheating. Overcharge and high current will cause the electrode material to fail and be scrapped, and the battery will swell and leak or even short-circuit lithium. The carbon materials and carbonate electrolyte in the battery are both flammable materials, and leakage can easily lead to fire and explosion. However, vanadium batteries use the reversible chemical valence changes of vanadium ions in aqueous solutions. The performance does not depend on the electrode structure. There is no pressure when faced with the taboo high current and overcharge and overdischarge of lithium batteries. The same overcharge will only cause water. In electrolysis, there is no problem as long as the pressure is released in time to discharge the hydrogen. As for fire, do you think the aqueous solution will catch fire? Of course, everything must have two sides. Compared with lithium batteries, vanadium batteries also have disadvantages. The weakness of vanadium batteries lies in their lower energy density, which is only 15-40Wh/L, which is even inferior to lead-acid batteries, resulting in large equipment volume and weight, making it difficult to use in mobile power sources. The vanadium salt itself has a relatively large molecular weight and its solubility in water is also limited. In addition, the cost of vanadium batteries is too high. Take a five-kilowatt battery as an example. The electrolyte (one cubic, 1.8mol/L) is 170,000, the control system is 100,000, the diaphragm is 70,000, the plate frame is 40,000, the graphite plate is 15,000, the pump is 7,000, and the carbon felt is 4,000. A total of 406,000, this is only the cost of critical materials, not included in the cost of secondary materials and labor costs. Therefore, the cost of a five-kilowatt vanadium battery is more than 400,000, which is several times higher than the cost of a lead-acid battery of the same specification. Disclaimer: Some pictures and content of articles published on this site are from the Internet. If there is any infringement, please contact to delete.