Flexible electrospun carbon nanofiber embedded with TiO2 as excellent negative electrode for vanadium redox flow battery. (10th August 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: He, Zhangxing; Li, Manman; Li, Yuehua; Zhu, Jing; Jiang, Yingqiao; Meng, Wei; Zhou, Huizhu; Wang, Ling; Dai, Lei
• Is Part Of: Electrochimica acta. Volume 281(2018)
• Page Start: 601
• Page End: 610
• Publication Date: 2018-08-10
• Subjects: Energy storage -- Vanadium redox flow battery -- Electrode -- Electrospinning technique -- Electrochemical kinetics; Electrochemistry -- Periodicals; Electrochemistry, Industrial -- Periodicals; 541.37
• DOI: 10.1016/j.electacta.2018.06.011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0013-4686

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper, flexible carbon nanofiber embedded with TiO2 (CNF/TiO2 ) was prepared by electrospinning technique, and used as negative electrode for vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). CNF/TiO2 composites were synthesized from solution consisting of Ti(OC4 H9 )4 as TiO2 precursor and polyacrilonitrile (PAN) as carbon precursor. High-purity rutile TiO2 can be dispersed evenly in CNF with the diameter of 100–200 nm. CNF/TiO2 composites exhibited superior electrochemical activity towards V 2+ /V 3+ redox reaction compared with pristine CNF. The excellent energy storage performances of VRFB were achieved via using CNF/TiO2 as negative electrode, with larger capacity and efficiency. At a current density of 90 mA cm −2, the discharge capacity of the cell using CNF/TiO2 electrode reached 84.0 mA h, 48.5 mA h higher than that of pristine cell. The energy efficiency of the cell based on CNF/TiO2 increased by 8.7% compared with pristine cell. The excellent electrochemical performance of CNF/TiO2 composite towards V 2+ /V 3+ redox reaction was attributed to the synergistic effect between carbon nanofiber networks with high conductivity and rutile TiO2 with high electrocatalytic properties.