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Benzoquinone-Hydroquinone Couple for Flow Battery

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2013

Saraf Nawar ,
Brian Huskinson  and
Michael Aziz
Saraf Nawar
Affiliation:
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Brian Huskinson
Affiliation:
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Michael Aziz
Affiliation:
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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Abstract

At present, there is an ongoing search for approaches toward the storage of energy from intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar. Flow batteries have gained attention due to their potential viability for inexpensive storage of large amounts of energy. While the quinone/hydroquinone redox couple is a widely studied redox pair, its application in energy storage has not been widely explored. Because of its high reversibility, low toxicity, and low component costs, we propose the quinone/hydroquinone redox couple as a viable candidate for use in a grid-scale storage device. We have performed single-electrode tests on several quinone/hydroquinone redox couples, achieving current densities exceeding 500 mA/cm2, which is acceptable for use in energy applications. We fabricated a full cell using para-benzoquinone at the positive electrode against a commercial fuel cell hydrogen electrode separated by a Nafion membrane. We evaluated its performance in galvanic mode, where it reached current densities as high as 150 mA/cm2. The results from these studies indicate that the quinone/hydroquinone redox couple is a promising candidate for use in redox flow batteries.

Keywords

energy storageorganicenvironmentally benign

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References

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