Basilio Suherman
Pronouns: he/him/his
Research Mentor(s): David Kwabi
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Mechanical Engineering / Engineering
Program: UROP
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Authors:
Abstract
While many cleaner alternatives to conventional energy sources are being developed and integrated for worldwide use, many fail to consider energy storage to be an important factor as well. There are many different types of cells in use today, one form of cell that could prove to be suitable for use in the larger power grid scale is the redox flow battery. Our research aims to find a suitable compound family to be used as electrolytes in cells that could be viable in the commercial or even industrial scale. We used various methods of analysis including LCM, NMR and UV spectroscopy coupled with cyclic voltammetry to monitor the decomposition of various compounds used as electrolytes in these redox flow batteries. We prepared these compounds and mixed them in solution to act as suitable electrolytes before running them in cells to observe how many cycles and how long the electrolytes will retain their properties before losing effectiveness. We found that compounds in the pyrazine and quinoxaline family to be quite effective as electrolytes as they retain their properties as electrolytes for an acceptable period of time and hold charge reasonably well. Although we have yet to find a specific compound that is best suited for this, we are reasonably confident that this compound could very well belong to the quinoxaline family, though further testing needs to be done to confirm this.
