Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery
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Dear Flow Battery Research Collective,
as part of the CIRCLE project at the Bochum University of Applied Sciences, our student group is preparing to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) for the Flow Battery Research Collective’s open-source redox-flow battery. If possible, we would like to take a look on the upscaled cell/stack/battery.
During our Zoom meeting on 19. November 2025, you shared several ideas for meaningful LCA topics. Based on your input, we developed two possible options that could support the ongoing development of the battery. To proceed, we would like to know which option you prefer or where you can provide the most useful data.Option 1: Electrolyte–Membrane interactions
This topic focuses on how the electrolyte composition and membrane material affect each other, especially regarding efficiency and degradation.
Goal:
To assess the environmental impact and technical relevance of electrolyte–membrane interactions, and to perform a screening comparison of membrane and electrolyte choices from production to end-of-life.
Information we would need (please provide as much information as possible):
• How the selected electrolyte interacts with different membrane materials and which parameters are considered for choosing the electrolyte-membrane pairing
• Measured efficiencies of the current electrolyte-membrane selection
• Background on membrane selection in the development kit (e.g. which specific materials were chosen and why)
• How is the material wear currently counteracted (replacement only)?
• How is waste (wastewater, solid waste, co-products from chemical manufacture) disposed of?Option 2: Electrolyte Leakage
Leakage is an important practical and environmental concern, and understanding its causes could support improvements in design, sealing, and material choice.
Goal:
To analyse the environmental implications of electrolyte leakage, identify contributing factors, and explore what design or material changes might minimise it.
Information we would need (please provide as much information as possible):
• How frequently leakage occurs (per cycle/per kit/in what percentage of the kits)
• How leakage is currently detected (refill volume, reduced power output, emissions, etc.)
• Whether it is monitored proactively or noticed after cycle completion
• Estimated amount of electrolyte lost per cycle
-> If no data is available, could it be collected by measuring leakage over multiple cycles?
• Whether leakage becomes more common with aging or due corrosion
• Current methods or design choices used to minimise leakage (e.g. sealing, welding, bonding)We also have some general questions. More questions will probably arise in the future.
General questions:
• How much energy supply does a RFB require (for one cycle/in total)?
• Which electricity mix is currently used to operate the battery (is there a proportion of green electricity)?
• Where are the materials purchased? From which countries are they delivered and how (train, car, ship)?
• In which country are the batteries assembled and tested?We would be happy to work on either topic, and we aim to select the one that is most helpful for the FBRC team and for which the necessary data can be provided.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts and continuing our collaboration!
Kind regards,
Rieke Huesmann, Anita Thaqi, Stella Vucemilovic -
Rieke & the rest of your team,
First off, apologies for the delay! It's been quite a busy period, I'm sorry to keep you waiting.
I personally think Option 1 would be more useful in terms of research output. While end-scale RFBs will have systems to address potential leakage - and leakage can certainly happen (see https://fbrc.nodebb.com/topic/54/the-ultimate-demise-of-my-last-redflow-zcell) - leakage should not happen, at all, period. It is a design/system failure that should be extremely rare and controlled for, and systems will usually already have a form of secondary containment, so that leakage doesn't enter the local environment. It would be hard to quantify in the ways you ask, since normally if there's a leak, you stop everything, fix the source of the leak, and start over.
For Option 1, the electrolyte and membrane choice certainly do affect each other, but also strongly affect the system as a whole, independently. I think it would be hard to just isolate to their linked effects between electrolyte and membrane.
@Rieke-Huesmann said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
Information we would need (please provide as much information as possible):
• How the selected electrolyte interacts with different membrane materials and which parameters are considered for choosing the electrolyte-membrane pairingAt FBRC, we have selected membranes that are easily available (ruling out exotic ion-exchange membranes), affordable (so no Nafion), and chemically compatible with the electrolytes we test (so, in neutral/acidic aqueous media, oxidizing/reducing conditions).
Purely in terms of material properties, a good membrane will have a high selectivity-it lets the ions you want (supporting electrolyte ions, e.g. potassium, chloride) through, and blocks ions you don't (e.g. charged triiodide molecules). Normally, an ion-exchange membrane (IEM) will allow either cations or anions through. Because there are no good cheap IEMs available for our use, we have just been using paper and other porous separators designed for batteries, like Daramic (designed for lead-acid systems). These are not very selective, but they are good enough for our use. A bonus of porous separators is that they are more conductive than IEMs, which leads me to...
Conductivity - this is just Ohm's Law, V = IR. You want the membrane's resistivity R to be as low as possible, so that the voltage drop across the membrane V, which is wasted energy, is as low as possible at a fixed current I. Resistivity is simply the inverse of conductivity. Again, we don't actively screen for this, because we find Daramic and paper to work well enough for testing - but it is because they meet our criteria. Nafion would certainly be more selective, and give us higher couloumbic efficiencies, but would be less conductive and cost way more (probably worse environmentally too, since it is fluorinated and has a complicated manufacturing process vs. porous separators).
So, to resume: availability, affordability, selectivity, conductivity (you want all of these values to be high!).
• Measured efficiencies of the current electrolyte-membrane selection
Here are the rough efficiencies for the system, they are likely slightly improved with some modifications we've made since this blog post: conditions, and results.
• Background on membrane selection in the development kit (e.g. which specific materials were chosen and why)
addressed above, I hope!
• How is the material wear currently counteracted (replacement only)?
Right now, we use a new membrane/separator for each test, in order to have repeatable results. It's possible to replace separators in a real stack but it would be very labor intensive/cost-prohibitive in a real stack. To my knowledge, I haven't heard of companies replacing membranes in the field, unless they have a big failure and they're under warranty - they probably just send the whole stack back to the factory and replace it with a new one, I'd wager.
• How is waste (wastewater, solid waste, co-products from chemical manufacture) disposed of?
Great question! We don't really have good answers on that. You'd have to look into the specifics of Nafion or lead-acid battery separator production (a very established industry). Also, for the chemicals we work with, they are all available at scale already: zinc chloride, potassium iodide, etc. I'd hope these are known already for their supply chains? I don't have knowledge here I'm afraid. Established chemical commodities like those probably don't have much waste, but could generate co-products as a result of their manufacturing. Iodine and zinc are both recycled, certainly.
At the end-of-life of an envisioned, full-scale RFB system - an inorganic electrolyte like Zn-I could be recycled with conventional chemical processing means (pH adjustment, precipitation, filtration - lots of techniques for aqueous inorganics). The reservoirs and stack could be recycled, but I doubt immediately reused. Metal current collectors, those are recycled easily. Plastic reservoirs, tubing, stack components - "recycled", as much as plastic is actually recycled - probably incinerated if we're looking at what happens nowadays... The used graphite felts may be able to be recovered or recycled - not sure. Used separators, again, possible to recycle. The main thing is, we don't know much about recycling of RFB stacks is - because not many of them have been built and actually reached end-of-life. They are, though, easy to take apart, which makes separating the constituent components very simple. And, for inorganic electrolytes, there are many established ways to recover the starting compounds, or to re-use in a new RFB system. This is an approach for vanadium RFB companies, some of which try to "lease" their electrolytes for periods of 20 years, because it effectively doesn't degrade (i.e., the vanadium isn't going anywhere).
I hope this helps, again, sorry for the delay! After the holidays/new year I will be much less busy (December was rough) and so I'll be able to answer more rapidly!
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Also, @Santiago-Eduardo mentioned you'd need parts by weight, manufacturing process, and material---this is certainly possible, though of course the design will evolve. I think it makes much more send to to this with our "large-format cell" (https://codeberg.org/FBRC/RFB-large-format-cell) as it is closer to a real system, than our dev kit (https://codeberg.org/FBRC/RFB-dev-kit), which is used to test new electrolytes and materials.
I think we can just build columns for weight, manufacturing process, and material, into the BOM of the project (which is currently in the README at https://codeberg.org/FBRC/RFB-large-format-cell). It will also eventually include tubing, pumps, reservoir, etc.
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Rieke & the rest of your team,
First off, apologies for the delay! It's been quite a busy period, I'm sorry to keep you waiting.
I personally think Option 1 would be more useful in terms of research output. While end-scale RFBs will have systems to address potential leakage - and leakage can certainly happen (see https://fbrc.nodebb.com/topic/54/the-ultimate-demise-of-my-last-redflow-zcell) - leakage should not happen, at all, period. It is a design/system failure that should be extremely rare and controlled for, and systems will usually already have a form of secondary containment, so that leakage doesn't enter the local environment. It would be hard to quantify in the ways you ask, since normally if there's a leak, you stop everything, fix the source of the leak, and start over.
For Option 1, the electrolyte and membrane choice certainly do affect each other, but also strongly affect the system as a whole, independently. I think it would be hard to just isolate to their linked effects between electrolyte and membrane.
@Rieke-Huesmann said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
Information we would need (please provide as much information as possible):
• How the selected electrolyte interacts with different membrane materials and which parameters are considered for choosing the electrolyte-membrane pairingAt FBRC, we have selected membranes that are easily available (ruling out exotic ion-exchange membranes), affordable (so no Nafion), and chemically compatible with the electrolytes we test (so, in neutral/acidic aqueous media, oxidizing/reducing conditions).
Purely in terms of material properties, a good membrane will have a high selectivity-it lets the ions you want (supporting electrolyte ions, e.g. potassium, chloride) through, and blocks ions you don't (e.g. charged triiodide molecules). Normally, an ion-exchange membrane (IEM) will allow either cations or anions through. Because there are no good cheap IEMs available for our use, we have just been using paper and other porous separators designed for batteries, like Daramic (designed for lead-acid systems). These are not very selective, but they are good enough for our use. A bonus of porous separators is that they are more conductive than IEMs, which leads me to...
Conductivity - this is just Ohm's Law, V = IR. You want the membrane's resistivity R to be as low as possible, so that the voltage drop across the membrane V, which is wasted energy, is as low as possible at a fixed current I. Resistivity is simply the inverse of conductivity. Again, we don't actively screen for this, because we find Daramic and paper to work well enough for testing - but it is because they meet our criteria. Nafion would certainly be more selective, and give us higher couloumbic efficiencies, but would be less conductive and cost way more (probably worse environmentally too, since it is fluorinated and has a complicated manufacturing process vs. porous separators).
So, to resume: availability, affordability, selectivity, conductivity (you want all of these values to be high!).
• Measured efficiencies of the current electrolyte-membrane selection
Here are the rough efficiencies for the system, they are likely slightly improved with some modifications we've made since this blog post: conditions, and results.
• Background on membrane selection in the development kit (e.g. which specific materials were chosen and why)
addressed above, I hope!
• How is the material wear currently counteracted (replacement only)?
Right now, we use a new membrane/separator for each test, in order to have repeatable results. It's possible to replace separators in a real stack but it would be very labor intensive/cost-prohibitive in a real stack. To my knowledge, I haven't heard of companies replacing membranes in the field, unless they have a big failure and they're under warranty - they probably just send the whole stack back to the factory and replace it with a new one, I'd wager.
• How is waste (wastewater, solid waste, co-products from chemical manufacture) disposed of?
Great question! We don't really have good answers on that. You'd have to look into the specifics of Nafion or lead-acid battery separator production (a very established industry). Also, for the chemicals we work with, they are all available at scale already: zinc chloride, potassium iodide, etc. I'd hope these are known already for their supply chains? I don't have knowledge here I'm afraid. Established chemical commodities like those probably don't have much waste, but could generate co-products as a result of their manufacturing. Iodine and zinc are both recycled, certainly.
At the end-of-life of an envisioned, full-scale RFB system - an inorganic electrolyte like Zn-I could be recycled with conventional chemical processing means (pH adjustment, precipitation, filtration - lots of techniques for aqueous inorganics). The reservoirs and stack could be recycled, but I doubt immediately reused. Metal current collectors, those are recycled easily. Plastic reservoirs, tubing, stack components - "recycled", as much as plastic is actually recycled - probably incinerated if we're looking at what happens nowadays... The used graphite felts may be able to be recovered or recycled - not sure. Used separators, again, possible to recycle. The main thing is, we don't know much about recycling of RFB stacks is - because not many of them have been built and actually reached end-of-life. They are, though, easy to take apart, which makes separating the constituent components very simple. And, for inorganic electrolytes, there are many established ways to recover the starting compounds, or to re-use in a new RFB system. This is an approach for vanadium RFB companies, some of which try to "lease" their electrolytes for periods of 20 years, because it effectively doesn't degrade (i.e., the vanadium isn't going anywhere).
I hope this helps, again, sorry for the delay! After the holidays/new year I will be much less busy (December was rough) and so I'll be able to answer more rapidly!
Hello Kirk,
we wish you two a happy new year! Thank you for your answer.
So we´re going to analyse Option 1: Electrolyte-membrane interactions. Therefore, we make a LCA, which includes transportation, production and use-phase.
We have some more questions:
- Friendly reminder to answer the general questions mentioned in our previous blog post:
General questions:
• How much energy supply does a RFB require (for one cycle/in total)?
• Which electricity mix is currently used to operate the battery (is there a proportion of green electricity)?
• Where are the materials purchased? From which countries are they delivered and how (train, car, ship)?
• In which country are the batteries assembled and tested?-
Do you have any data of the composition and volume of the electrolyte of the large-format cell design? Or should we scale up the chemicals from the 2 cm² RFB to the 175 cm² RFB?
◦ Electrolyte composition: 4M KI, 2M ZnCl2, 1M NH4Cl in deionized H2O
→ Is M equivalent to mmol/L or mol/L?
◦ Electrolyte volume: 5 mL (anolyte) + 5 mL (catholyte) -
Do you have an assumption for how many cycles the matte photo paper could last?
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How long do the tests of the RFB last (in minutes/hours)? We need this information to calculate the power consumption.
We would gladly like to accept your offer of building columns for weight, manufacturing process, and material, into the BOM of the project.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Rieke Huesmann, Anita Thaqi, Stella Vucemilovic -
Dear @kirk thank you very much for answering the questions! The Team working on the LCA could already start modelling the electrolyte and the current separator. Due to time restrictions (their final assignment is due for early February), the group has come to the following assumptions/decisions for the remaining questions. If you find the time to have a read and provide feedback, it would be great to be able to represent the environmental impact of your electrolyte and separator. The following decisions and assumptions have been considered:
Elektrolyte:
The group noticed that two slightly different electrolyte compositions are mentioned.
The mass-based recipe corresponds to roughly ~2 M KI, ~1 M ZnCl₂, and ~2 M NH₄Cl and also includes triethylene glycol (TEG) as an additive. This composition is also mentioned on the Chemisting post, showing EE = 77.61% (at least for the ninth cycle) compared to the results you linked above (E = 64%).
The other description (the one you referred to early on) specifies 4 M KI, 2 M ZnCl₂, and 1 M NH₄Cl in deionized water, with a total of 10 mL split between the anolyte and catholyte, and does not mention TEG.
The group will assume the TEG composition as the latest version to be implemented on the larger cell format.Furthermore, the electrolyte volume for the large cell application is still missing. To close this gap, the group wants to scale the volume through the cell area factor (175/2) to maintain the conditions from which EE and other values have been taken. They assume an 880 ml volume for one single cell. Do you estimate this volume to maintain the obtained results until now? Is this the volume foreseen to achieve the 22 Wh/single large-format cell?
Energy loss/demand to store 1Wh
When modelling the use phase, the group considers material or energy inputs necessary to run the flow battery (only related to the defined scope: electrolyte + separator). In the case of the electrolyte, energy loss per storage unit needs to be modelled. The group is assuming the EE value to estimate this. This value does not include energy demand from pumps and electronics, correct? Although the mentioned results represent the performance of the electrolyte without TEG, this EE (64%) value will be assumed to model more conservatively. Meaning: to store 1 Wh, 1.56 Wh needs to be taken from the grid (excluding electronics and pumps). Does this make sense, or are we oversimplifying here?Used electricity
For the same purpose of modelling the use phase, it is important to define from which country and what type of energy/electricity is being used to charge the electrolyte. Since the users of the FBRC battery can be anywhere, but are currently mostly centered in Europe, the group has decided to choose the European electricity grid mix data to represent the current FBRC reality.Separator
We would like integrate the environmental impact of the current separator within the efficiency of the large cell format. This means defining a functional unit, for instance: environmental impact per 1 kWh along a defined time unit. Meaning that all the environmental impact generated in a defined period of time (usually defined after the lifespan of a key component, for example the electrolyte) are calculated and then divided through all the energy (for example kWh) which was able to be stored and delivered. Charge/discharge cycles are to be defined (for instance 1 charge/discharge cycle per day, depending on the implementation and cycle duration) to estimate how much energy was stored and calculate all the peripheral environmental impacts. The separator, for instance, would be one of these peripheral impacts, since it would need to be replaced after some cycles (probably faster than the electrolyte). Since cycle durability of photo paper is still unknown, the group will model different scenarios from 10–100 cycles in steps of 30 cycles. Do you feel this is a reasonable range? Do you already now conditions such as density and flow rate the larger cell will work with? The group will assume 4 layers for the larger cell although in some parts are 3 layers stated.Production and transport of chemicals and separator
The current BOM and building instructions do not provide specific links to purchase the necessary chemicals. To model the electrolyte production, including the transportation of each chemical, the group has assumed the following production locations based on market data and worldwide production trends. If your own experience differs in this, please do not hesitate to comment.-
Ammonium chloride: Production in China. Only global processes are available for production, but transportation will be modelled from China to Europe.
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Deionised water: Local (in our case Europe or Germany as an approximation).
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Zinc chloride: Production in China. Available processes for production will be used, but transportation will be modelled from China to Europe.
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TEG: Production in China. Only global processes are available for production, but transportation will be modelled from China to Europe.
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Separator: China
I hope this update also makes sense for you. We are very much excited to have a first environmental assessment of the electrolyte and separator. This could help monitor the environmental impact of further decisions on those aspects.
Kind regards and hoping to hear from you soon,
Santiago
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Dear @kirk thank you very much for answering the questions! The Team working on the LCA could already start modelling the electrolyte and the current separator. Due to time restrictions (their final assignment is due for early February), the group has come to the following assumptions/decisions for the remaining questions. If you find the time to have a read and provide feedback, it would be great to be able to represent the environmental impact of your electrolyte and separator. The following decisions and assumptions have been considered:
Elektrolyte:
The group noticed that two slightly different electrolyte compositions are mentioned.
The mass-based recipe corresponds to roughly ~2 M KI, ~1 M ZnCl₂, and ~2 M NH₄Cl and also includes triethylene glycol (TEG) as an additive. This composition is also mentioned on the Chemisting post, showing EE = 77.61% (at least for the ninth cycle) compared to the results you linked above (E = 64%).
The other description (the one you referred to early on) specifies 4 M KI, 2 M ZnCl₂, and 1 M NH₄Cl in deionized water, with a total of 10 mL split between the anolyte and catholyte, and does not mention TEG.
The group will assume the TEG composition as the latest version to be implemented on the larger cell format.Furthermore, the electrolyte volume for the large cell application is still missing. To close this gap, the group wants to scale the volume through the cell area factor (175/2) to maintain the conditions from which EE and other values have been taken. They assume an 880 ml volume for one single cell. Do you estimate this volume to maintain the obtained results until now? Is this the volume foreseen to achieve the 22 Wh/single large-format cell?
Energy loss/demand to store 1Wh
When modelling the use phase, the group considers material or energy inputs necessary to run the flow battery (only related to the defined scope: electrolyte + separator). In the case of the electrolyte, energy loss per storage unit needs to be modelled. The group is assuming the EE value to estimate this. This value does not include energy demand from pumps and electronics, correct? Although the mentioned results represent the performance of the electrolyte without TEG, this EE (64%) value will be assumed to model more conservatively. Meaning: to store 1 Wh, 1.56 Wh needs to be taken from the grid (excluding electronics and pumps). Does this make sense, or are we oversimplifying here?Used electricity
For the same purpose of modelling the use phase, it is important to define from which country and what type of energy/electricity is being used to charge the electrolyte. Since the users of the FBRC battery can be anywhere, but are currently mostly centered in Europe, the group has decided to choose the European electricity grid mix data to represent the current FBRC reality.Separator
We would like integrate the environmental impact of the current separator within the efficiency of the large cell format. This means defining a functional unit, for instance: environmental impact per 1 kWh along a defined time unit. Meaning that all the environmental impact generated in a defined period of time (usually defined after the lifespan of a key component, for example the electrolyte) are calculated and then divided through all the energy (for example kWh) which was able to be stored and delivered. Charge/discharge cycles are to be defined (for instance 1 charge/discharge cycle per day, depending on the implementation and cycle duration) to estimate how much energy was stored and calculate all the peripheral environmental impacts. The separator, for instance, would be one of these peripheral impacts, since it would need to be replaced after some cycles (probably faster than the electrolyte). Since cycle durability of photo paper is still unknown, the group will model different scenarios from 10–100 cycles in steps of 30 cycles. Do you feel this is a reasonable range? Do you already now conditions such as density and flow rate the larger cell will work with? The group will assume 4 layers for the larger cell although in some parts are 3 layers stated.Production and transport of chemicals and separator
The current BOM and building instructions do not provide specific links to purchase the necessary chemicals. To model the electrolyte production, including the transportation of each chemical, the group has assumed the following production locations based on market data and worldwide production trends. If your own experience differs in this, please do not hesitate to comment.-
Ammonium chloride: Production in China. Only global processes are available for production, but transportation will be modelled from China to Europe.
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Deionised water: Local (in our case Europe or Germany as an approximation).
-
Zinc chloride: Production in China. Available processes for production will be used, but transportation will be modelled from China to Europe.
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TEG: Production in China. Only global processes are available for production, but transportation will be modelled from China to Europe.
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Separator: China
I hope this update also makes sense for you. We are very much excited to have a first environmental assessment of the electrolyte and separator. This could help monitor the environmental impact of further decisions on those aspects.
Kind regards and hoping to hear from you soon,
Santiago
Hi all, and apologies for the delay! This year has started off with quite a lot of administrative burden for me and I haven't had as much time for research as I anticipated.
@Santiago-Eduardo said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
Elektrolyte:
The group noticed that two slightly different electrolyte compositions are mentioned.Sorry for the confusion, the correct mass composition can be found in the documentation here: https://fbrc.codeberg.page/rfb-dev-kit/electrolyte.html, the masses listed will prepare approximately 10 mL of electrolyte.
@Santiago-Eduardo said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
They assume an 880 ml volume for one single cell. Do you estimate this volume to maintain the obtained results until now? Is this the volume foreseen to achieve the 22 Wh/single large-format cell?
Yes this would be correct volume scaling for the large-format cell, although of course still a lot smaller than an eventual life-size system! It is basically t]e volume that we will end up using for our tests of the large-format cell (still to come).
@Santiago-Eduardo said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
The group is assuming the EE value to estimate this. This value does not include energy demand from pumps and electronics, correct?
Correct, these losses are often summed up in RFB literature as "balance-of-plant" or BoP if you want to search for some values.
@Santiago-Eduardo said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
Meaning: to store 1 Wh, 1.56 Wh needs to be taken from the grid (excluding electronics and pumps). Does this make sense, or are we oversimplifying here?
You've got it exactly!
@Santiago-Eduardo said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
Used electricity
For the same purpose of modelling the use phase, it is important to define from which country and what type of energy/electricity is being used to charge the electrolyte. Since the users of the FBRC battery can be anywhere, but are currently mostly centered in Europe, the group has decided to choose the European electricity grid mix data to represent the current FBRC reality.This makes sense to me.
@Santiago-Eduardo said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
The separator, for instance, would be one of these peripheral impacts, since it would need to be replaced after some cycles (probably faster than the electrolyte). Since cycle durability of photo paper is still unknown, the group will model different scenarios from 10–100 cycles in steps of 30 cycles. Do you feel this is a reasonable range? Do you already now conditions such as density and flow rate the larger cell will work with? The group will assume 4 layers for the larger cell although in some parts are 3 layers stated.
While separators can be replaced, I am doubtful in an industrial system that they would, due to the labor costs. From my understanding, Li-ion lifetimes are often given as 2,000 cycles to 80% of initial capacity; for flow batteries, the data isn't as solid, but for VRFB the lifetime claims are more on the scale of 20,000 cycles or 20 years, whichever comes sooner (taken with a grain of salt...). We haven't done any testing that long-term, so don't have much for your to extrapolate, but RFB technoeconomic papers with operation and maintenance (O&M) costs incorporated would give you a good idea of membrane/pump replacement
frequency (if ever). I would increase the cycle range to much longer terms, with the upper end in the 1,000s at least.We aren't yet locked-in on flow rates for the large cell as we are still settling on choice of pumps and flow field design.
@Santiago-Eduardo said in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the FBRC redox-flow battery:
The current BOM and building instructions do not provide specific links to purchase the necessary chemicals. To model the electrolyte production, including the transportation of each chemical, the group has assumed the following production locations based on market data and worldwide production trends. If your own experience differs in this, please do not hesitate to comment.
These assumptions all make sense to me; Daramic separator (which we also use in addition to paper depending on the test) can/is produced in the EU though not exclusively.
I hope this clears things up for you all somewhat, and again, sorry for the delay!
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