What is Prudent's VRB®?
The Vanadium Redox Battery (VRB®) is a patented advanced energy storage system that is safe, environmentally friendly and operates at the lowest cost of any flow battery technology.
The VRB® can be described in several ways. It is:
- An electrochemical system that efficiently converts chemical energy to electrical energy, and vice versa
- A ‘flow battery' that rapidly charges and discharges
- A patented process based on the reduction and oxidation of different forms of the element Vanadium
- An on-demand energy storage system where:
- The electrolyte never wears out and overall maintenance costs are extremely low;
- Energy (electricity) can be stored in liquid form, at room temperature, almost indefinitely; and
- Customers do not have to buy more capacity than they immediately need, and can easily add energy and power in modular fashion over time.
Prudent's Vanadium Redox Battery is rechargeable – like a car or cell phone battery – but that's where the similarities end.
A Vanadium Redox Battery has three main parts:
- 1) A stack – where the conversion of electric energy and chemical energy takes place
- 2) Tanks – holding liquid electrolyte
- 3) A power conversion system
Unlike conventional batteries that store their reactive materials within the cells, a flow battery stores electrolytes in tanks, one for positive reactions and another for negative. These electrolytes get pumped through the cells when electric current flows – and then return to the same tanks. The positive and negative electrolytes do not actually mix together; a thin membrane separates them so that only selected ions "flow" through the cells.
In the VRB®, a very high number of charges and discharges can occur without any significant decrease in capacity. This enormous cycling capability exists partly because the electrodes – where the reactions take place – are made of stable, porous carbon material that does not get altered physically or chemically when the dissolved salts come in contact with it.
Flow batteries are also unique in their ability to meet specific energy and power demands of almost any size. If you were to connect a long series of conventional (e.g., lead-acid) batteries, that string will inevitably be weakened by the differing energy levels within each independent cell. A flow battery, on the other hand, contains cells with nearly identical characteristics, since they all share the same energy-bearing electrolyte. This makes the upper limit of the energy-to-power ratio of a flow battery virtually unlimited.
Prudent’s VRB® is distinct from hybrid flow batteries (such as zinc-bromine or sodium-sulfur, for example) which have one reactive electrode and therefore suffer from the degradation drawbacks of conventional batteries. Using only Vanadium in the electrolyte – as opposed to a blend of electrochemical elements – gives Prudent Energy's advanced battery systems the most competitive advantage in terms of operating cost, system life, maintenance, and safety.