Convection Battery - Performance Improvement and Characterization

The convection battery pumps liquid electrolyte between the electrode and counter-electrode.  It is different from flow batteries in that the same electrolyte is used by both electrodes and the active reagents are stored as solids.  This paper is on lithium-ion chemistry performance in the battery. A design constraint of the convection battery is that the electrodes and separator must be permeable to flow at thicknesses of 0.5 to 6 mm.  This constraint has led to reduced energy densities in the electrode materials for initial materials used for studies.  This paper is on the use of composite electrodes to increase energy density.  The use of composite electrodes more than doubled the energy densities.  The use of reference electrodes to facilitate improved understandings of overpotential losses.  These studies revealed that the anode (discharge mode) is a major source of voltage loss for batteries that are assembled with lithium in the discharged state.