[CCoE Notice] Thesis Defense Announcement: Design, Synthesis and Characterization of Organic Redox Materials for Aqueous Flow Battery

[Grayson, Audrey A]

Kuan-Yi Lee will defend his MS thesis, DESIGN, SYNTHESIS, AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ORGANIC REDOX MATERIALS FOR AQUEOUS FLOW BATTERY at  Nov. 18th, 2:30pm in N308 Engineering Bldg. 1 (ECE Conference Room)

Committee members:
Prof. Yan Yao, Thesis advisor, ECE Materials Science and Engineering program
Prof. Wei-Chuan Shih, ECE Materials Science and Engineering program
Prof. Ognjen Miljanic, Department of Chemistry

Abstract:
A redox flow battery (RFB) is a rechargeable battery where two soluble chemical compounds contained within the system function as catholyte and anolyte separated by an ion-exchange membrane. Redox flow batteries decouple the power and energy density with the advantages of flexible layout, long cycle life, quick response, and no harmful emissions. Commercial all-vanadium flow batteries suffer from high cost of vanadium electrolyte and cation exchange membrane as a major bottleneck for wide adoption. Severe corrosion also takes place in the acidic electrolyte environment.
In this Master thesis, I present the design, synthesis, and characterization of organic compounds as low-cost anolyte materials for aqueous flow batteries with neutral electrolytes. Design rules are proposed and various core structures and functional groups are examined. The organic redox materials were then synthesized with high solubility of up to 1.6 M in water. I demonstrate stable cycling for 50 cycles with 99.6% capacity retention and the coulombic efficiency higher than 99.7%. The theoretical energy density is projected to be as high as 44.86 Wh/L. This work paves the way for developing organic materials for low-cost aqueous flow batteries.
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