FlowCamp is a research and training project funded by the European Union’s Marie-Sklodowska-Curie programme. FlowCamp involves 11 partner organisations from 8 different countries, who will recruit 15 PhD students for the project.
RESEARCH in FlowCamp aims to improve materials for high-performance, low-cost next-generation redox-flow batteries.
Renewable energy sources like wind turbines require large-scale, stationary energy storage systems to balance out fluctuations in energy generation. Redox-flow batteries are considered to be one of the most promising solutions. The recruited fellows will develop materials (membranes, electrodes, electrolytes, catalysts, sealing materials) and macrohomogeneous models for three next generation RFBs (hydrogen-bromine, organic and zinc-air systems). They will then upscale the new systems to prototype level, and validate them using the cutting-edge battery testing facilities available for the prestigious German-funded RedoxWind project at Fraunhofer ICT.
The new RFB technologies can be combined in energy storage systems tailored to a wide variety of application scenarios, with lower cost, longer service life and higher efficiency than conventional (e.g. Li-ion) storage devices.
High-quality individualised TRAINING in scientific and complementary skills, and a structured programme of training units, will provide the fellows with unique interdisciplinary competence in electrochemistry, material science and cell design / engineering, as well as an overview of different redox-flow battery technologies and their implementation at prototype level. FlowCamp will consequently go far beyond existing electrochemical training, in a field with a high and growing research demand.
The project will run from 1st September 2017 until 28th February 2022.