Electrochemical simulation of liquid metal batteries

Liquid metal batteries (LMBs) consist of a stable density stratification of two liquid metal electrodes, separated by a molten salt electrolyte. Discharing the cell, the anode metal dissolves in the cathode metal. Due to slow diffusion, concentration layers develop especially at high current densities, and lead to considerable concentration polarisation. As the density difference between the anode and cathode metal is usually large, the formed density stratification is often very stable. The talk will describe how to simulate the electric potential, current density and Lorentz force in a liquid metal battery. Finally, it will be shown that electrodynamically driven flow is able to mix the cathode alloy of an LMB, thus reducing concentration polarisation. A 10 cm Li||Bi cell, studied experimentally by Ning et al., will be used as reference case.