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).

I'm still coming up-to-speed on the current state of this technology and what challenges are left to be overcome for high current, high voltage cells. Delivering enough electrolyte flow, uniformly through the felt electrode for high current production seems like it's going to be a big one. I'm very excited to see what this group is doing and will be learning a lot from you all!

Cheers!
-James

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

Cheers,
Steve

I also admire what you guys are doing there at OSE-US and it always strengthens our motivation and enthusiasm to see what has been already achieved there at the Factor E Farm.

I hope we can make such a good progress with the FBRC projects too and i'm glad to collaborate with you on that.

Energy storage is to important to leave it alone in the hands of the monopolists and therefore i appreciate any OSH approach to research a kind of storage technology, no matter which one because all have their individual properties, advantages and use cases and it would be nice to cover more of them by open source hardware projects.

Therefore it makes a lot of sense to strengthen and extend our networks and secondly, the above mentioned different kinds of technology are not only useful in terms of pure technology, but instead aspects like replicateability can also have a strong value in our context, because if an experimental platform is easily accessible you can gain more people working with it and that means more menpower in running experimental test series. Which can lead at the end of the day to some groundbreaking innovations (fingers crossed).

I am new here and still trying to find my way into the workflow but so far i got nice support from Daniel and Kirk, so i am confident and looking forward for what comes next.

Here is a link to our project page at the OSEG wiki at https://wiki.opensourceecology.de/Zn/O-Brennstoffzelle (with recent activities in an approach of citizen-science workshops, eg. at https://wiki.opensourceecology.de/ZACplus_Citizen-Science_workshop_vom_21.03.2025_und_22.03.2025) and some other impressions can be seen at our YT-channel https://www.youtube.com/@ZACplusCitizen-SciencePr-un9nv/videos .

Best regards, Oliver

Hi, I am vesko. Not very intuitive how to introduce myself, but I hope that by touching Al over the previous screen, this is the place. Anyway.
I am a retired electronic HW/SW engineer. Have all the time for my own projects. Independent living is my highest priority and I am ready and willing to put my time, money and efforts to achieve that goal and possibly help others along the way.
I bought a house in the boonies, I had a water well drilled. I am designing and implementing my oven silt filtration system that doesn’t need to buy and replace filters, chemicals etc. only if something breaks I need to repair/replace it. I installed solar system. Prefer water turbines, but it’s a much more complicated project, so solar is an imperfect but fast solution. Not very happy with the price of lithium batteries “lease” they call it purchase. It’s not a purchase / it’s a 10-15 years lease. So, looking forward to be battery independent

@rowow said in New member introduction thread!:

Secondly, using foam core PVC sheets which are readily available and cheap from cabinet shops like imeca allows for complex flow cell designs to be easily and rapidly produced with a simple CNC router on various sizes. I have a flow cell design already I'll be glad to upload.

This would be great to see! Feel free to start a thread in @general-discussion about your cell design. We had tossed around the idea of 2D-material milling/laser approaches to flow frames, but have stuck with 3D printed designs for now so that we can have internal geometries in the flow frames - 2D would certainly be easier and cheaper to make, but I was hesitant about the increased gasketing required/adhesives for sealing.

There's a lot I would love to add to this community. I think the way traditional methodology for this technology needs to be reapproached. Firstly, by using my open sourced membrane recipe you can glue it directly into a PVC cell. Secondly, using foam core PVC sheets which are readily available and cheap from cabinet shops like imeca allows for complex flow cell designs to be easily and rapidly produced with a simple CNC router on various sizes. I have a flow cell design already I'll be glad to upload. I'm new here so sorry there's a lot I love to want to share and am doing things one thing at a time.

I found FBRC via a friend who found you in OSHWA’s hardware listing. I followed the breadcrumbs to your forum.

I am interested in the low cost, low toxicity, and long cycle durability of flow batteries, especially since the batteries being developed here are open source! I want to see this tech spread far and wide.

Additionally, I am interested in finding out about how this project could use a novel method of low-cost/DIY ion exchange membrane production that was developed by Rowow on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c3tNXDlgE2M

I see myself getting involved by taking working cell designs and electrolyte chemistries to build flow batteries for use in home scale energy storage. I wish to fully utilize photovoltaic power to cover my at home energy needs.

Thanks for reading! -Alexa

Kind Regards.