I am thinking of trying to make some videos on our flow battery project, and came across some other attempts at RFBs on YouTube. I’m a bit loath to make videos, but also, it would help grow our open-source community—and, I’m pretty sure I could improve on what’s already out there!
Here’s some clips of what I’ve found:
Cayrex: mostly capacitors, did a VRFB
Good presentation but doesn’t really actually characterize the results. Set up looks good but some small details that really would affect actual testing, like reservoir sealing, flow path configuration (inlet/outlet are on same side of cell chamber), etc.
Some clips from his VRFB video:
From his videos and comments, it’s clear there is a lot of interest in this sort of technology. To date, however, I haven’t seen much of practical interest on his channel, it bounces around a lot between quite different approaches, mostly just making something that delivers a voltage reading and delivers some current, with no regard to cycling stability.
Mukund Srnivas
Has done some 3D-printed flow batteries, but no cycling it looks like:
Robert Murray-Smith
A TON of videos, on a range of subjects, great communicator, but nothing that is actually cycled long-term or able to be scaled. Very popular channel with a lot on zinc-bromine.
UK Energy Storage CDT!
They built a 12V soluble lead-acid flow battery:
Mr Electron
People are making aluminum-air batteries at home!
Conclusion
I don’t have a real thesis here, perusing YouTube it’s clear there’s a ton of interest in this technology and people willing to get hands-on with it. If we could get some videos out there with more solid documentation and theoretical underpinnings, I hope we could get some new interested folks on board!