Vanadium for flow batteries : a design study

Abstract: As society strives to transition for sustainable energy generation is it a major challenge to optimize and develop the renewable energy generation that currently exists, both in terms of individual components and their interactions in the entire energy system. The generation from renewable sources is often irregular and not always when the demand arises. By being able to store the excess energy generated and then deliver it when the demand occur results in a more sustainable energy system. Flow batteries are a possible technology for energy storage. An important component of flow batteries are vanadium and to find methods for extracting vanadium in an economical way is an important step in the development of this technology. The idea behind the thesis was therefore to investigate different extraction methods for vanadium where the most promising methods, from an economic and energy perspective, are examined in more detail. The vanadium should then be used to electrolyte in flow batteries. It has also been examined how the cost is affected by moving a planned facility for extraction from the ashes to a developing country with lower personnel costs. In the thesis was also included to explore similar projects on a larger scale conducted in Sweden, how the view of vanadium is from an EU perspective and how flow batteries can be a part of an energy system. The methods considered most promising is extraction from mineral mining and extraction from ashes. A planned production plant has been dimensioned for both processes of production and energy demand is calculated. The study showed that both processes are expected to produce vanadium below current purchase price, which would then contribute to a cheaper production cost of flow batteries. It turned out that the production of vanadium from ash extraction would be significantly reduced by moving the business to a developing country. The operation stage in the mining operation which accounts for the highest energy demand is the size reduction of the ore. In the extraction process of vanadium from ash, it is primarily the fusion furnace and the fly ash filter required which has the highest energy demand. The similar extraction projects investigated was, from ashes, the so-called SOTEX process in Stenungsund and the mineral mining process had the Ranstad project as reference. The EU approach to vanadium is currently that the metal is not classified as a critical raw material but if economic instability would occur in any of the major manufacturing countries it would be considered as a more critical raw material. Flow batteries functioning as energy storage in a PV hybrid system was investigated and it was concluded that flow batteries are technically well suited for energy storage in this type of system.