An MRI scanner will watch chemicals react inside a flowing liquid battery, revealing the hidden processes that limit performance. Electrochemical flow systems—used in grid-scale batteries, water desalination, and metal recycling—are held back because no one can see exactly what happens inside them as they run. The interplay between chemical reactions and fluid flow creates concentration gradients that govern efficiency, but these have remained invisible. This project builds custom flow cells that fit inside an MRI machine, allowing researchers to map where ions deplete, where reactions stall, and how fluids move, all in real time. If the technique works, it will give engineers a direct view of the bottlenecks in redox flow batteries, metal-ion batteries, and capacitive deionisation cells. That could accelerate the development of cheaper, longer-lasting energy storage for the grid and more efficient methods for recycling critical materials and cleaning water. The methods are designed to be adopted by the wider research community, not locked in one lab. This is fundamental science—building a new way to see electrochemistry in motion. But that visibility is precisely what has been missing for decades, and it could transform how these technologies are optimised.
View original technical description
Technologies based on electrochemical flow systems are emerging as promising more-sustainable solutions for the global challenges of climate change, materials availability and clean water supply. They offer opportunities to meet the goals of the UK’s “Net Zero” strategy, through development of improved energy storage and improved electrochemical recycling of mineral and water resources. Electrochemical flow technologies are underpinned by a common operational mechanism, where performance is simultaneously governed by electrochemistry and hydrodynamics (flow, diffusion and convection), and share common electrochemical processes, that establish internal concentration gradients which are coupled with mass transport. While there is increasing interest in developing electrochemical flow technologies, their advancement, and ultimate commercialisation, is inhibited by a lack of understanding of the fundamental processes controlling them, limiting their improvement, optimisation and ultimately, their commercialisation. In this project, we will develop advanced characterisation techniques, based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to non-invasively, holistically and simultaneously observe and quantify the interplay between electrochemistry and flow for the first time. These characterisation techniques will enable direct and simultaneous identification and localisation of species and depletion/reaction zones, while mapping diffusion and flow velocities of electrolytes/electrodes, in multivalent metal ion flow batteries, redox flow batteries and flow-electrode capacitive deionisation. The proposed project will design, construct and optimise flow cells and establish a suite of imaging protocols to study electrochemical flow systems. The development of these cells and imaging protocols will be guided by a range of test systems, pioneered by researchers developing electrochemical flow technologies. Systems will be selected, initially, from amongst those studied by our project partners, but will extend to systems beyond these, which are being advanced by researchers in the wider community. This project will deliver transformative insight into the behaviour and optimisation of a range of electrochemical flow systems, leading to an acceleration of their development. Our initial focus will be on redox flow batteries, multivalent metal-ion flow batteries and flow-electrode capacitive deionisation. However, the goal of the proposal is to not only advance these initial systems/technologies, but to develop the characterisation tools required to advance all electrochemical flow technologies. Our methods will be applicable to a diverse range of electrochemical storage systems, as well as electrochemical recycling of metals and other critical elements/materials, organic electrosynthesis and flow synthesis. Working with our project partners, we will ensure the MRI technique developments are guided by the applications. Building on the network of electrochemical researchers established in this project, we will engage with the wider electrochemistry, energy storage and sustainability communities, disseminating technical and scientific knowledge, and ensuring these techniques become more widely employed and accessible beyond the NMR and MRI communities. Therefore, this project will enable the establishment of novel operando flow cells and imaging protocols to advance our understanding of all electrochemical flow systems, the acceleration of technological innovation of electrochemical flow technologies through greater understanding of the fundamental molecular processes underpinning these more-sustainable electrochemical applications for the future, the creation of a national network of researchers developing electrochemical flow technologies, accelerate the UK's progress towards New Zero.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know