Flow Battery Research Collective

kirk

@AZavatone welcome ! very interested in real field experience with RFBs, you're welcome to share as much as you like! the manufacturer/supplier of the RFB did not include a system/service plan for rebalancing?

kirk

Hi all,

Been working on some upgrades to the dev kit for a bit, the draft documentation is out---rough around the edges but all the files are there for fabrication. The cell can now close with a simple C-clamp which is much more ergonomic and resistant to leaks. Most of the parts are forward-compatible.

https://codeberg.org/FBRC/RFB-dev-kit

https://fbrc.codeberg.page/rfb-dev-kit/

kirk

Time-stamping the electrolyte formulation for Zn-I, I am making the documentation to build the dev kit chemistry agnostic (so I am taking these weights out of the docs for now)

zinc chloride - 1.36 grams
potassium iodide - 3.32 grams
ammonium chloride - 1.07 grams
deionized water - 8.50 grams
triethylene glycol - 0.55 grams

This usually ends up preparing around 11 mL of solution which we split evenly between the two reservoirs.

kirk

welcome @martinr and @jpengineering ! Iron hybrid RFBs are very appealing but managing hydrogen evolution is the real challenge---we've been working on some promising approaches here, Daniel has done some tests on a non-conventional iron electrolyte here: https://fbrc.nodebb.com/topic/44/only-fe-system.

I haven't seen Nighthawk's carbon felt video, but @rowow came through the forum already talking about his membranes! I'd like to get my hands on some to try (don't have the time right now to go into DIY membranes---we are using porous separators for the moment since they don't give us issues and we are mostly focused on cell/electrolyte R&D).

kirk

There is a now a Windows build, and fewer crashes related to file picker UI on Linux.

Downloads and source here: https://codeberg.org/FBRC/mystat/releases/tag/v1.2.2

kirk

@Vorg it's always hard to say with those videos because there is no accompanying data

kirk

from this paper, seems like nanomaterial synthesis needed: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-026-02091-w#Sec25

also they use triflate salts --- that's likely more expensive than the Zn (and, fluorine-containing, with all that entails)

kirk

Welcome @stevenhickey , great to have someone with as much experience as yourself here! I doubt you remember me but I think we crossed paths at IFBF in Brussels when I was doing my PhD a few years ago. I was/still am a big fan of Redflow systems, I think a lot of us were sorry to see the news about Redflow a while ago.

Great to hear that you've set up a home lab and are still pushing! Are you focused mostly on Zn-Br still?

kirk

Welcome @oliver.schlueter and @nadia_avva ! We are definitely indeed all about the ownership of energy and energy technologies here you are in the right place! We'd love to connect our batteries to a small wind turbine (Piggott-style, probably) as soon as they are large enough... your and Oliver/OSE's wind experience could be very helpful!

kirk

Made a longer-form video explaining our open-source battery project and diving into the details of the kit and chemistries we're working with!

It would really help our project out a lot if you could share this with interested folks.

YouTube link (feed the algorithm): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhWBX1eLDr8

And of course, PeerTube: https://spectra.video/w/4wTobcS16Ww5UAZVMWrC9E

Please let me know what you think, comments, criticisms, suggestions---first time I've made a video like this and I have a lot to learn.

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