REDOX CELL HYDRODYNAMIC MODELLING: TOWARDS REAL IMPROVED GEOMETRY BASED ON CFD ANALYSIS

Abstract

[EN] Redox cell is an assembly consisting of electrodes surrounded by a volume of electrolyte (liquid). The redox cell device stores electrical energy with full of high acid flows and this acidity causes big difficulties for physical modeling. To overcome this problem, numerical and experimental analysis of those flows in a real redox cell have been developed and here described. A methodology to improve redox cell performance based on the analysis of the electrolyte flow is proposed. Improvements in the flow uniformity are achieved by means of the definition of some designed parameters based on CFD analysis. The depicted methodology is applied to a specific redox cell geometry for improving authors¿ previous designs. This article quantifies parameters for this particular case and the proposed improvements. The considered CFD model is also validated with experimental data using a real scale cell built in transparent material. The convergence between experimental and numerical results is fairly good. Finally, the geometry designed based on this proposed methodology presents 0% dead zones or recirculations in the membrane area, which will definitely improve the overall interchange efficiency of the cell. This validated methodology is presented for a real future design strategy of these sorts of devices.