My adventures building a DIY Mn/Fe flow battery

Patrik L

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Necessity if the mother of all inventions which could indicate an external driving force like you focus on in your reply, but necessity is equally found internally, to challenge the mind and to find or expose the true nature of oneself. Not meant to be poetic, but it could be.

Inventing or "to boldly go where no man has gone before" isn't always about financial gain or recovery, sometimes its to push boundary's of what is possible or meaningful. Science have never been about financial gain, science has always been about expanding the mind and our collective understanding of oneself in this universe.

.. and then there is... *yawn*.. money ;). Profit isn't evil in itself, to that I degree. But it can be if solely used as an argument for... etc. But I'll think its better to stop here. There is room for multiple views and perspective when it comes to "right & wrong", but this is hardly the place for deep political views.

But thanks for sharing
 

Patrik L

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Q: Couldn't Fe-EDDHA be used in a similar manor as FeCl ? ... the reason for asking is twofold. One: It would reduce the complexity of the battery and two: reduce the crossover contamination. If it can't, I'd love to hear the reason since I am going on the same ionisation states as that of the FeCl counterpart.
 

danielfp248

Battery researcher
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Sep 7, 2020
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Q: Couldn't Fe-EDDHA be used in a similar manor as FeCl ? ... the reason for asking is twofold. One: It would reduce the complexity of the battery and two: reduce the crossover contamination. If it can't, I'd love to hear the reason since I am going on the same ionisation states as that of the FeCl counterpart.
You cant use it this way. The FeEDDHA chelate dissociates under strongly acidic conditions. You end up with Fe3+ and H4EDDHA in solution.
 

Patrik L

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Happy late Easter. I periodically refresh chemisting dot com to see if there is any news and noticed that the page is down. Is it maintenance or something going on ?
 

danielfp248

Battery researcher
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Sep 7, 2020
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390
A new friend who is currently doing a post doc in France and did his Ph.D. in flow batteries donated me a basic setup for flow battery research, including two motors and a cell with a small area (many thanks if you read this!!). You can see the setup below. He was also kind enough to send me small samples of microporous membranes and graphitic felt electrodes.

The pumps are driven by a 24V power supply and a low cost NoceMCUv3 board. They draw around 2.1W each.

My potentiostat sadly got damaged in a small accident (got some liquid on it), so I have ordered a new and improved version (based on this paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468067220300729) to continue my research. The total cost was around 310 USD, including shipping and customs to the EU.

In the meantime I am doing some Fe-EDTA crossover tests using the microporous membrane, to see how bad the crossing of the Fe is as a function of time.
 

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Patrik L

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Nice to hear from you and that you are monitoring the action and reaction of the chemicals, always something :)
 
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