Liquid Flow Battery Shunt Current

What is a shunt current?

It supplies every cell with electrolyte, however, constitutes at the same time an electric connection between the cells through which parasitic currents can flow, the so-called shunt currents. The problem of shunt currents plays an important role for the designing of stacks for flow batteries.

Are shunt currents a problem in flow batteries?

Shunt currents are a particularly acute concern in typical flow batteries because very conductive electrolytes circulate through the reactors. Thus, minimizing the deleterious effects of shunt currents is a primary concern of stack designers.

Can redox flow battery stack reduce shunt currents?

Based on these findings, a novel redox flow battery stack design (343 cm 2 active area), with a high manifold resistance and a low flow frame channel resistance, is proposed to mitigate the shunt currents; cells with no electrochemical activity (dumping cells), evenly inserted into the stack, were considered to increase the manifold resistance.

How does shunt current affect flow frame geometries and cell figures?

We model shunt current effects for various flow frame geometries and cell figures. Inner cells discharge faster; outer cells are charged during charge conservation. 1. Introduction Flow batteries, especially the vanadium system, are regarded as a promising storage technology for the realization of large-scale battery storage systems.

Where do shunt currents occur?

View the article online for updates and enhancements. Shunt currents occur in electrochemical reactors like flow batteries, electrolyzers, and fuel cells where many bipolar cells that are connected in series electrically contact a mobile electrolyte through one or more common fluid distribution manifolds.

Do shunt currents exist in a vanadium flow battery stack?

A report about shunt currents in a vanadium flow battery stack has been given by Ref. . Shunt currents are not limited to single stacks, but also an important loss mechanism in battery systems consisting of several stacks; this matter was modelled by Ref. and more recently by Refs. and .