A Tubular Electrochemical Reactor for Slurry Electrodes

The research on electrochemical reactors is mostly limited to planarly designed modules. In this study, we compare a tubular and a planar electrochemical reactor for the utilization of the slurry electrodes. Cylindrical formed geometries demonstrate a higher surface-to-volume ratio, which may be favorable in terms of current density and volumetric power density. A tubular shaped electrochemical reactor is designed with conductive static mixers to promote the slurry particle mixing, and the vanadium redox flow battery is selected as a showcase application. The new tubular design presents similar cell resistances to the previously designed planar battery and shows increased discharge polarization behavior up to 100 mA cm^-2. The volumetric power density reaches up to 30 mW cm^-3, which is two times higher than that of the planar one. The battery performance is further investigated and 85 % coulombic, 70 % voltage and 60 % energy efficiency is found at 15 mA cm^-2 with 15 wt.% slurry content.