Densely Populated Bismuth Nanosphere Semi-Embedded Carbon Felt for Ultrahigh-Rate and Stable Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries

The elaborate spatial arrangement and immobilization of highly active electrocatalysts inside porous substrates are crucial for vanadium redox flow batteries capable of high-rate charging/discharging and stable operation. Herein, a type of bismuth nanosphere/carbon felt is devised and fabricated via the carbothermic reduction of nanostructured bismuth oxides. The bismuth nanospheres with sizes of approximate to 25 nm are distributed on carbon fiber surfaces in a highly dispersed manner and its density reaches up to approximate to 500 pcs mu m(-2), providing abundant active sites. Besides, a unique bismuth nanosphere semi-embedded carbon fiber structure with strong interfacial Bi-C chemical bonding is spontaneously formed during carbothermic reactions, offering an excellent mechanical stability under flowing electrolytes. It shows that the bismuth nanosphere semi-embedded carbon felt can effectively promote V(II)/V(III) redox reactions with appreciable catalytic activity. The battery with the present electrode sustains an energy efficiency of 77.1 +/- 0.2% and an electrolyte utilization of 57.2 +/- 0.2% even when a current density up to 480 mA cm(-2)is applied, which are remarkably higher than those of batteries with the bismuth nanoparticle/carbon felt synthesized by the electrodeposition method (62.6 +/- 0.1%, 23.6 +/- 0.2%). Further, the battery with the present electrode demonstrates a stable energy efficiency retention of 98.2% after 1000 cycles.