Fluid mechanics of Na-Zn liquid metal batteries
Liquid metal batteries have been introduced as promising option to address the needs for new energy storage technologies. Currently, batteries based on sodium and zinc are under development and a favorable option due to their high theoretical cell potential, readily abundant materials, and cost-advantages. Nevertheless, they face the problem of self-discharge, which makes it inevitable to understand fluid dynamics in the whole cell. Motivated by that, several types of fluid mechanic instabilities in Na-Zn liquid metal batteries are identified and discussed here. On the one hand they can jeopardize secure operation, but on the other hand they can also improve mixing and increase the cell efficiency. In doing so, realistic cell as well as operation parameters are included and dimensionless numbers for identifying critical conditions are presented. The phenomena with highest significance for the discussed batteries are solutal convection, swirling flow, electrocapillary Marangoni convection, and droplet formation. Still, many open research questions remain and we aim at motivating researchers to dig deeper into some of these topics to contribute to an improved cell design and performance.
Authors
- Carolina Duczek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9602-7691)
- Paolo Personnettaz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8990-0643)
- Gerrit Maik Horstmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9892-9309)
- Pavel Trtik (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6481-5191)
- Mārtiņš Sarma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9443-1424)
- Alexander Gelfgat (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3223-9708)
- Kristian Etienne Einarsrud (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6228-2088)
- Tom Weier
- Gleidys Monrrabal
- William Nash (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1615-7702)
- Tobias Lappan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2826-1395)
- Camilla Sommerseth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5050-7438)
- Norbert Weber (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5191-0122)
- Ole S. Kjos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0316-2462)
- Wenjin Ding (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5037-5810)
- Omar E. Godinez‐Brizuela (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4457-9811)
- S. Landgraf
Institutions
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- SINTEF (NO)
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
- Centre National d'Études Spatiales (FR)
- Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (DE)
- Paul Scherrer Institute (CH)
- Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) (DE)
- Institut des Sciences de la Terre (FR)
- Université Gustave Eiffel (FR)
- SINTEF Industry (NO)
- Université Grenoble Alpes (FR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Applied Physics Reviews
- Published
- 2024-12-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0225593
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Battery Materials and Technologies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.88
Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme