The electrolyte employed in the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) is typically produced on an industrial scale through a secure and contaminant-free electrolysis process. However, the electrolysis rate is relatively sluggish, leading to elevated energy consumption. Herein, we propose a cost-effective method for electrolytic production of V(IV) electrolytes with carboxyl-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs-COOH) as the electrocatalyst and explore their effects on the electrolysis process. The results indicate that adding MWCNTs-COOH nanoparticles enhances the reactive sites of the electrode, thus improving the electrochemical activity of the electrolyte. The 0.1 wt% nanoparticle demonstrates the optimal catalytic performance for reducing V(V) to V(IV). Compared to the traditional electrolysis method, the proposed approach exhibits a 6.67 % increase in electrolysis rate, a 15.57 % reduction in energy consumption, and a notable relief in electrode corrosion. Furthermore, cyclic charge/discharge experiments illustrate that the prepared nanofluidic electrolyte exhibits superior performance in terms of voltage efficiency, Coulombic efficiency, energy efficiency, and discharge capacity retention. This invention offers a novel concept for vanadium electrolyte preparation, which reduces energy consumption and cost and improves the system's energy efficiency, showing great promise for practical VRFB applications.

中文翻译：

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纳米流体基电催化还原 V2O5 制备 V4+电解质用于钒氧化还原液流电池


钒氧化还原液流电池 （VRFB） 中使用的电解质通常通过安全且无污染的电解过程以工业规模生产。然而，电解速率相对缓慢，导致能耗升高。在此，我们提出了一种以羧基官能化多壁碳纳米管 （MWCNTs-COOH） 为电催化剂电解生产 V（IV） 电解质的经济高效的方法，并探讨了它们对电解过程的影响。结果表明，添加 MWCNTs-COOH 纳米颗粒增强了电极的反应位点，从而提高了电解质的电化学活性。0.1 wt% 纳米颗粒表现出将 V（V） 还原为 V（IV） 的最佳催化性能。与传统的电解方法相比，所提出的方法使电解速率提高了 6.67%，能耗降低了 15.57%，电极腐蚀明显减轻。此外，循环充放电实验表明，所制备的纳米流体电解质在电压效率、库仑效率、能源效率和放电容量保持方面表现出优异的性能。本发明为钒电解质制备提供了一种新颖的概念，降低了能耗和成本，提高了系统的能源效率，在实际 VRFB 应用中显示出巨大的前景。