One of the major obstacles in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy lies in the temporal deviation between energy production and consumption. This calls for a more efficient energy storage solution to overcome the waste of surplus generated capacity and meet the peak demand. There is an increasing research interest in redox flow batteries (RFBs) as an energy storage solution to address these issues. RFBs convert energy through reversible redox processes occurring between electroactive materials in solution. However, the practical energy density of commercially available RFBs is typically low (10s of Wh/L) due to the use of an aqueous solution with a narrow potential window. This limits the contemporary application to the stationary energy storage arena for installations where sufficient space is available (i.e., large power plant facilities). To overcome this challenge, we study novel organometallic compounds bearing aromatic nitrogen heterocycle ligands and investigate their potential as electrolytes for RFBs in organic solvents. We focus on four compounds and their borylated analogs in the form of LmFe(CN)n and LmFe[(CN)(BCF)]n respectively, where m = 1, 2; n = 2, 4 and L = 2,2-bipyridine, 4-Methyl-1,10-phenanthroline. We found that these compounds are highly electrochemically reversible and possess a wide potential window that can further be increased using a lewis acid. We propose studying these compounds in a semi-solid redox flow battery system as a way of addressing the energy density issue.

Investigating electrochemical properties of organometallic aromatic nitrogen heterocycles and their use as electrolytes in redox flow batteries

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