Bismuth Single Atoms Regulated Graphite Felt Electrode Boosting High Power Density Vanadium Flow Batteries

Abstract

Vanadium flow batteries (VFBs) are considered one of the most promising candidates for large-scale energy storage. However, VFBs suffer from relatively low power density due to severe electrochemical polarization. Herein, we report Bi single atoms supported by an N-doped carbon-regulated graphite felt electrode (Bi SAs/NC@GF) with high electrocatalytic activity and stability, owing to the greatly improved active sites and optimized Bi–N₄ configuration. Electrochemical in situ characterization and theoretical calculations elucidate the desolvation process and specific inner sphere reaction mechanism of [V(H₂O)₆]³⁺/[V(H₂O)₆]²⁺. As a result, a VFB single cell assembled with Bi SAs/NC@GF achieves a much higher energy efficiency of 81.1% at 240 mA cm^–2 than NC@GF (70.5%). Moreover, a 5 kW VFB stack equipped with Bi SAs/NC@GF is assembled for the first time and ran stably for over 400 cycles. This work confirms that a single-atom catalyst is efficient for scalable VFBs with high power density and low cost.