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SPACER - Shaping Porous Electrode Architecture to Improve Current Density and Energy Efficiency in Redox Flow Batteries

SPACER is a research and training project funded by the European Union’s Marie-Sklodowska-Curie programme. It involves 13 partners and 8 associated partners from 9 different countries, who will recruit 17 PhD students for the project.

The general problem of flow batteries and other battery types is the relatively high levelized costs of storage. SPACER aims to develop new architectures for porous electrodes to improve the power density and energy efficiency of redox flow batteries, enabling affordable and durable long-duration energy storage.

Our objectives

Multiscale modelling to better understand RFB behaviour and identify optimal hierarchical shaped pore- and electrode-structure to encounter optimum electrolyte as well as electrical flow.
Prototyping of the identified structures via stereolithographic (micro-), 3D printing (meso-) and textile techniques like tufting, machine-based embroidery techniques or non-interlaced 3D pre-forming (macro-scale).
Characterisation of the material prototypes via cutting-edge imaging and characterisation techniques such as electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR)-imaging, distribution of diffusion times (DDT) analysis and ultra-fast Tera-Hertz EPR spectroscopy to validate the models and the electrode Performance.
Validation, evaluation and demonstration of the developed technologies in half-cells and full working batteries.