Abstract
Camacho's flow battery, a modification of the dichromate battery invented by Poggendroff in 1842, was the first draft of what would later become a redox flow battery (RFB). The first application of such a battery was by aeronaut and aviation pioneer Charles Renard, who in 1884 developed the airship La France , featuring a propeller driven by an electric motor and powered by a Zn/Cl2 redox flow battery. The redox flow battery is an electrochemical system capable, like batteries or fuel cells, of transforming chemical energy into electrical energy. However, it differs from batteries in that the solid electrodes are replaced by liquids, within which the redox couple is located. Although based on the use of a liquid flow, this system also differs from fuel cells in that it is a closed, reversible system. As already mentioned, a wide variety of aqueous flow batteries are available. The advantages of redox flow systems lie i) in the possibility of decoupling power and autonomy, the latter being controlled by the size of the tanks containing catholyte and anolyte, and ii) in the fact that they use an aqueous electrolyte and are therefore attractive for sustainable development.
