With the consideration of optimizing the performance of the all-vanadium redox flow battery (VRB), the oxidation reaction mechanism of VO2+ on a rotating graphite disk electrode has been investigated by potentiodynamic polarization in sulfuric acid solutions with various pH and vanadium concentrations. Furthermore, the reaction orders of VO2+ and H+ for the oxidation reaction of VO2+ have been calculated from the polarization results and compared with the theoretical results according to the possible reaction mechanisms available in the literature. However, a new oxidation reaction mechanism has been proposed to describe the oxidation of VO2+ at last, and the theoretic reaction orders of VO2+ and H+ based on the new mechanism are consistent with the experimental results when the electrochemical reaction is the rate-limited process. Moreover, a corresponding kinetic equation has been established for the oxidation reaction of VO2+ on a spectroscopically pure graphite electrode, and can be well used to predict the polarization behavior in V (IV) acidic solutions. (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.