In order for the widely discussed benefits of flow batteries for electrochemical energy storage to be applied at large scale, the cost of the electrochemical stack must come down substantially. One promising avenue for reducing stack cost is to incre
ase the system power density while maintaining efficiency, enabling smaller stacks. Here we report on a membrane-less, hydrogen bromine laminar flow battery as a potential high power density solution. The membrane-less design enables power densities of 0.795 W cm$^{-2}$ at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, with a round-trip voltage efficiency of 92% at 25% of peak power. Theoretical solutions are also presented to guide the design of future laminar flow batteries. The high power density achieved by the hydrogen bromine laminar flow battery, along with the potential for rechargeable operation, will translate into smaller, inexpensive systems that could revolutionize the fields of large-scale energy storage and portable power systems.
We discuss the electrostatic contribution to the elastic moduli of a cell or artificial membrane placed in an electrolyte and driven by a DC electric field. The field drives ion currents across the membrane, through specific channels, pumps or natura
l pores. In steady state, charges accumulate in the Debye layers close to the membrane, modifying the membrane elastic moduli. We first study a model of a membrane of zero thickness, later generalizing this treatment to allow for a finite thickness and finite dielectric constant. Our results clarify and extend the results presented in [D. Lacoste, M. Cosentino Lagomarsino, and J. F. Joanny, Europhys. Lett., {bf 77}, 18006 (2007)], by providing a physical explanation for a destabilizing term proportional to $kps^3$ in the fluctuation spectrum, which we relate to a nonlinear ($E^2$) electro-kinetic effect called induced-charge electro-osmosis (ICEO). Recent studies of ICEO have focused on electrodes and polarizable particles, where an applied bulk field is perturbed by capacitive charging of the double layer and drives flow along the field axis toward surface protrusions; in contrast, we predict reverse ICEO flows around driven membranes, due to curvature-induced tangential fields within a non-equilibrium double layer, which hydrodynamically enhance protrusions. We also consider the effect of incorporating the dynamics of a spatially dependent concentration field for the ion channels.
