What is a zinc-iron flow battery? What are the advantages? |
Release time:2023-03-11 09:39:49| Viewed: |
From the perspective of the proportion of new installed technologies in 2022, the proportion of liquid-flow battery energy storage technology is 2.3%, and the growth rate of the proportion is significantly accelerated.
One of the reasons behind it is technological breakthrough and economic improvement.
Cost and safety are the two major pain points of the new long-term energy storage technology. Can the zinc-iron flow battery, which is famous for its low cost and high safety, take advantage of this to make a strong success?
Technical traceability
The zinc-iron flow battery is a technology that relies on the electrochemical reaction between zincate ion and iron ion to realize the storage and release of electric energy. It was first proposed by foreign researchers and has a development history of more than 40 years.
Zinc iron flow battery can work in a wide pH range, so it can be divided into alkaline, acidic and neutral zinc iron flow battery.
The alkaline zinc-iron flow battery has a high open-circuit voltage, and can cycle for a long time at a high current density with porous membrane and porous electrode; The acidic zinc-iron flow battery fully utilizes the advantages of high solubility of iron ions in acidic media and stable electrochemical performance, but the negative side is greatly affected by pH; Neutral zinc-iron liquid flow battery has attracted more and more attention due to its non-toxic, harmless and mild environment. The combination with porous membrane can effectively reduce the cost of battery.
At present, alkaline zinc-iron flow battery is the main development direction of zinc-iron flow battery in the market. The domestic research and development of zinc-iron liquid flow battery mainly comes from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
More importantly, compared with other liquid flow battery systems, this system has lower cost (<400RMB/kWh) and shows good application prospects.
The temptation of low cost
In the industrialization of zinc-iron flow battery, Weijing Energy Storage seems to be moving fast and steadily.
In 2013, Liu Lei (chief intelligent manufacturing officer of Weijing Energy Storage) and the founding team have begun to search for new energy storage solutions around the world, excluding the all-vanadium and iron-chromium routes that are more familiar in China. Liu Lei and the team finally selected the zinc-iron flow battery. In their view, zinc and iron raw materials are more competitive with large supply and low price.
In 2018, Weijing Energy Storage Technology Co., Ltd. was established. Its core technology comes from the zinc-iron liquid-flow grid-level energy storage technology of ViZn Company in the United States. This energy storage technology has significant safety and environmental protection advantages. At the same time, it has good economic benefits for users. It is a safe and cost-effective energy storage product. It has more than 40 years of technology accumulation and reserves.
Based on this technology, Weijing Energy Storage, in conjunction with China Power Construction Group Jiangxi Electric Power Construction Co., Ltd., jointly developed and constructed the supporting 200kW/600kWh zinc iron fluid energy storage system demonstration project of Yugan Xianghui 20MW poverty alleviation photovoltaic power generation project in June 2019, which will be successfully connected to the grid in October 2021.
The project uses the Weijing Energy Storage Xiyin series energy storage products, which are extremely safe and environmentally friendly, with a service life of up to 20 years, a wide range of working environment temperatures (- 10 ℃~+45 ℃), a long energy storage time (>8 hours), and low cost per kilowatt hour, and have a wide range of applications, suitable for a variety of long-term new energy storage needs.
According to Weijing Energy Storage, its founding team took the lead in breaking through the key problem of electrochemical reduction reaction (inhibition of zinc dendrite) and obtained patents, further reducing the technical cost of zinc-iron flow battery.
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At the end of July, the intelligent manufacturing base (super G factory) of Weijing Energy Storage in Zhuhai started construction at the "5.0 industrial new space centralized commencement ceremony". At the same time, Liu Lei, the chief intelligent manufacturing officer of Weijing Energy Storage, said in an interview that he would invest 1.7 billion yuan to build a 1.5GW/a zinc-iron liquid battery project in Fushan Industrial City.
In addition to Weijing energy storage, there are also other enterprises and teams in the domestic market that are exploring the technology of zinc-iron liquid flow battery. For example, Chongqing Xinhe Qiyue and the R&D team of Changsha University of Technology have carried out the industrialization of zinc-iron liquid flow battery, designed the corresponding prototype, and promoted the localization of relevant devices;
Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Jinshan New Energy cooperated to independently develop a 10 KW alkaline zinc-iron flow battery energy storage demonstration system, and put it into operation in Jinshan New Energy Zone in 2020.
In general, the zinc-iron liquid flow energy storage battery is a very novel technology, and the players are still few. Although the zinc-iron liquid flow battery has high energy efficiency, long cycle life and low material cost, and has broad prospects for commercialization, it is still only on the paper. It is expected to make a strong presence in the energy storage market with a variety of technologies, and the relevant enterprises represented by Weijing Energy Storage are expected.
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