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Metal-Free 'Rhubarb' Battery Could Store Renewable Grid Energy
sciencehabit writes "A molecule nearly identical to one in rhubarb may hold the key to the future of renewable energy. Researchers have used the compound to create a high-performance 'flow' battery, a leading contender for storing renewable power in the electric utility grid. If the battery prototype can be scaled up, it could help utilities deliver renewable energy when the wind is calm and the sun isn't shining."
Abstract.
Just had to say it. Gotta love PHC!
is gonna love this.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That is a shame. I wish it could store non-renewable energy too...
"Wow - a rhubarb pie? For me? Let me carve out a slice right now!"
"BZZZZERK!"
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If I lost 100 lbs and got $100k in plastic surgery I could maybe be a model too!
...a model what?
( *poof!* - you're now plastic and at 1/144th scale )
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The summary implies that this technology could be used for large-scale power, but I wonder what the storage density is.
Specifically I wonder how this compares to liquid metal batteries. If everything Professor Sadoway says about the liquid metal batteries is true, those really will provide grid-level storage of power.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Wouldn't surprise me.
That stuff is extremely sour!
It's like eating pure H+
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
Of course any attempt to store NON-Renewable energy will invalidate the warranty,
...and Custard!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I doubt the utilities would like this, but for the average home dweller with solar panels it would be useful.
Or we could use the battery in cars, so that while we charge our car in it's garage, when the sun goes down, it can power the house back the other way.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Never rub another man's rhubarb.
Yeah, go read what your own post actually says.
Bart Korman is the sponsor of House Bill 44 (HB44). The bill would allow Missouri utilities – including Ameren, Kansas City Power & Light, and Empire Electric Company – to count ancient hydroelectric plants like the 83 year-old Bagnell Dam towards compliance with the RES.
Clue: Hydro Power IS Renewable Power. Its perfectly appropriate.
In addition, HB44 would allow these utilities to purchase “renewable energy credits” from hydropower from anywhere in the world, of any size. If HB44 goes into law, utilities will change nothing about where their power comes from, and instead Missouri ratepayers would literally be subsidizing large hydropower from faraway places like the Hoover.
In the large picture, it doesn't matter where the power enters the GRID. We've been "wheeling" power for close to a hundred years.
There isn't wind power everywhere, so getting those areas that do have it to put it on the grid makes sense. If there is nobody living
in a a windy area, there would be little reason to build a wind farm there unless you could find remote purchasers.
Your example is seriously flawed. Your understanding of power generation is seriously lacking.
But I gotta say, your tinfoil hat is bright and shiny.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
EETimes has a more useful article. This is more like a reversible fuel cell. The working fluid is pumped through the cell, where a chemical reaction occurs. The process is reversible. So there's a "charged" fuel tank, a "discharged" fuel tank, pumps, and plumbing. No info yet on the energy density of the "charged" fuel tank, which is the big question.
In the galvanic direction, peak power densities were 0.246Wcm2 and 0.600W cm2 at these same SOCs, respectively (Fig. 1c). To avoid significant water splitting in the electrolytic direction, we used a cut-off voltage of 1.5V, at which point the current densities observed at 10% and 90% SOCs were 2.25 A cm2 and 0.95Acm2, respectively, with corresponding power densities of 3.342Wcm2 and 1.414Wcm2. ...
The galvanic discharge capacity retention (that is, the number of coulombs extracted in one cycle divided by the number of coulombs extracted in the previous cycle) is above 99%, indicating the battery is capable of operating with minimal capacity fade and suggesting that current efficiencies are actually closer to 99%. ...
AQDS has an aqueous solubility greater than 1M at pH 0, and the quinone solution can thus be stored at relatively high energy density—volumetric and gravimetric energy densities exceed 50Whl1 and 50Whkg1, respectively. ...
As shown in Fig. 2, current efficiency starts at about 92% and climbs to about 95% over ~15 standard cycles. Note that these measurements are done near viable operating current densities for a battery of this kind. Because of this, we believe this number places an upper bound on the irreversible losses in the cell. In any case, 95% is comparable to values seen for other battery systems.
I'm not an expert in any applicable field, but as I have institutional access to the original paper, I scanned it to find what looked to me like relevant numbers. As I interpret the above:
It generates about 0.5W cm^-2 of membrane, so you'd need 2m^2 to get 1 kW output. (But presumably this can be in some compact folded/layered configuration.)
It can charge much faster than it discharges: that 2m^2 of membrane would let you charge at about 4kW.
The storage capacity of the battery fades at less than 1% per charge/discharge cycle.
One litre of reactants lets you store 50Wh of energy (i.e. 20kg for a kilowatt hour)
I think the last paragraph is saying that, neglecting pumping costs, it returns about 95% of the energy you put into it.
Note that we can expect these numbers to improve with further research, but whether there are big improvements to come or only minor ones I couldn't say.
Also: They use a two-reactant-tank set up rather than four tanks, so each tank holds a mixture of the 'charged' and 'discharged' forms of its reactants (e.g. one tank holds a mixture of Br2 and HBr.) I'd naively expected a four tank set up.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Well, what this really means is that states such as Idaho and Kentucky can suddenly make it rich in renewable energy, as they're well positioned on the power grid. If other states are preventing renewable energy in-state, that just means other states can drop a few incentives and get a sudden boom in the local economy. Especially since all they need to do is become a storage pool for the existing grid.
Now renewable energy in privately-held consumables... that's another issue. Such states could easily become the forerunners here too though, showing that it can be done and becoming attractive to corporations/talent that wants to solve the problems.
From corn to rhubarb... worth a try.
Yeah; the use of battery has become almost as bad as the use of magazine....
We should just replace the word "battery" with "cluster" (as in beowulf) so that people understand what it means. But I think it's already too late for that.
Is this what passes for science reporting... "A molecule nearly identical".
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
If I lost 100 lbs
You mean scaled down?
It's about storing a large amount of energy in a very large amount of electrolyte without similarly large plates and electrical connections. For power storage they are thinking in terms of batteries the size of buildings, perhaps built like current sewerage-treatment plants, to store energy in the electrolyte and move it along, bringing it back to the electrical assembly with pumps as needed. It can be considerably less energy-dense than current batteries in pounds per erg and still be far more practical for the kind of large-scale storage the tech is aimed at.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
What's cluster go to do with hitting someone?
For grid storage your battery will be a building. It can be as large as necessary; it's the price of the infrastructure and reactant to store and re-create enough energy to get the solar farm past a rainy day which are limits.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
I'm going to start demanding a nickle in response to every press release announcing a new miracle battery technology.
I figure that will let me retire in about 18 months.
G.
I doubt it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
And how many charge/discharge cycle that "rhubarb battery" can handle ?
What are the benefits this "rhubarb battery" has over the ultra-capacitors which can handle huge number of rapid charge/discharge cycles ?
See the comment I posted back in 2012 regarding ultra-capacitors @ http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3143769&cid=41458249
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I'm all for it, it seems that as these alternative power options become more feasible the more push back from corps you're likely to see, at least if you want them attached to the main grid.
Personally in sunny states I think every new house should have panels and be tied into the grid.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm ready to have cost issued decided by a judge.
In what may be the first time a U.S. solar power project has been declared cost-competitive against natural gas in a competitive bidding process, a judge has said solar is cheaper than natural gas. The ruling could be a road map for avoiding a new fossil fuel age dominated by big natural gas.
He can declare all he wants. When it comes to the issue of cost, a legal jurist is seriously outside his area of competence. Solar in Minnesota is asinine. I lived there for may years.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The difference is that a battery can hold a useful amount of energy.
As a rough guideline, 1 amp hour ~= 10,000 farads.
That's the capacity of a large ultra capacitor or a AAA battery. You don't power a city with those. You can, use them to power your SSD for four seconds in case of a power outage so it can finish writing the data.
Isn't anyone concerned that one of the reactants is a halogen?
When I was a kid I ate large amounts of rhubarb, rhubarb pie, cobbler, etc. Definitely created high performance flow issues, involving interfacing with utilities by, uh, sitting on the can.
I think the reality is that "renewable" is a code word for many things to many people. To some it means local, to others it just means creating an economic incentive for cleaner power *somewhere*, as the credit system would.
For instance, I wouldn't support the allowance for hydroelectric power most of the time because of the tendency to screw up ecosystems more than some solar panels will, but it's still renewable.
Water and hydrogen peroxide are also pretty damn close. H2O, H2O2. How much difference could an additional hydrogen atom make?
I used to be a big advocate of the idea of having big batteries to store electricity from unreliable and "green" energy like wind and solar. That was until the cost of wind and solar power really sunk in. Wind power is on about par with peak energy generation like natural gas turbines, which is somewhere between 2x and 3x the cost of typical base load power like coal and nuclear. Solar power is so expensive, and variable (based on location, weather, usage, etc.) that it boggles my mind that any utility would even consider it. Then I recall all the subsidies from tax money spent on this nonsense that it starts to make sense to me again.
The cost of the wind and solar power is high enough that adding to the cost with storage has got to mean the total cost to the utility, and therefore the customer, would be something like 4x what coal and nuclear would cost. Then the size of these batteries would have to be astronomical.
One thing that concerns me is the environmental impact these batteries would have. The materials for the batteries would have to come from somewhere. I assume they would have to be mined out of the ground. These batteries would have to be manufactured, transported, etc. The carbon footprint of pouring the concrete pad these would most likely have to sit upon would have to be quite large.
Another question of environmental impact is, what if there is a leak? The stuff used in the batteries may have been derived from plant material but too much of anything can be bad. I grew up on a farm, I saw what too much water can do. I also saw what too much fertilizer can do, it burns the crops almost as if it was set on fire. What will the liquids in this battery do to crops and water supplies if there is an accidental release?
At least with nuclear power any radioactivity will decay away, with a chemical spill that stuff will always be there. I would much rather see someone come up with a technology to make the production of ammonia cheaper and not rely on natural gas. Ammonia is a fertilizer, a naturally occurring substance, and a fuel. An ammonia leak would still be an asphyxiation hazard, a fire hazard, could burn crops, and could pollute a water supply. However, ammonia is a gas that breaks down into nitrogen and water in the air. The stuff they use in this battery contains bromine and sulfur, what would that do to the water table?
No thanks, I'll take nuclear power instead.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
No doubt Hydro changes ecosystems, but unless you are damming very large rivers and endangering fish runs, the ecosystem changes are not significantly different than what was there, (larger lakes where smaller ones were).
The single most significant impact seems to be on certain species of ocean going fish.
As often as not fish and bird populations are improved by lakes forming upstream of dams.
The alleged damage is merely change, and not irreversible change, but some people won't accept any change.
They bitch long and loud about it while sitting in their houses built on huge tracts covering vast regions of prime farmland, prairies and forest.
In many regions, we are tearing out no longer needed dams:
Cool Video Condit Dam: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/environment-news/us-condit-dam-breach-vin/
Time lapse Elwa Dam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUZE7kgXKJc
NYT Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/us/30dam.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Maine: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/us/maine-dam-removal-a-start-to-restoring-spawning-grounds.html
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Have you ever looked into how damaging it is to the environment to actually build a solar panel? They use nitrogen trifluoride to manufacture them.
Also, the batteries themselves, both production and recycling provide a large impact to the environment.
I lean more to nuclear technology, unfettered by the people who think that recycling spent fuel leads to weapons of doom.
And yes, I've lived with a braidwood nuclear power plant a few miles away and don't mind having a reactor in my back yard (the cooling lakes make great fishing areas).
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Well manufacturing can be done safely, not arguing it is, only that it is possible.
As for nukes, I'm all for it using newer technology, after all can you really run a city like Tokyo on solar?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Definitely. If he was scaled up he would be a fish.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
or a snake
True. And snakes scale horizontally.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Meanwhile solar is in use at Dome A in Antarctica!
The people who set it up just attached the panels vertically on poles.
Minnesota is tropical in comparison.
No you won't, because the banks and governments will not touch it and the energy utilities don't have enough ready cash to do it alone.
The lesson that should have been learnt after TMI of lots of small reactors didn't happen so the price per reactor is still far too high for it to happen without vast amounts of capital.
Also the nuclear lobby ate it's own children by lobbying against such small reactors and thorium research. Unless something comes out of India or China does something original civilian nuclear is going nowhere.
So even though enormous nuclear plants of a new design could theoretically come in cheap per MW/h over their lifetime it's not happening because the price of entry is too high for anyone to be interested.
Thus at this point the other alternative energies, such as solar and wind, are far more relevant than nuclear.
Now that they've leveled off their mountains, Kentucky and West Virginia have got plenty of flat land to build on!
Power companies are trying to op out of solar power subsidies.
Because the grid is not designed to handle significant amounts of unpredictable single phase power coming from residential customers, at inconvenient times of the day, and it is definitely not designed to pay retail rates for power from any source. Residential solar uptake in those areas is reaching the saturation point at which the grid simply cannot handle any more without a very serious overhaul, which includes pervasive bulk energy storage. They're fighting back against legislation that requires them to pay for power they cannot use, and increase the rates on the rest of their customers to compensate.
Sounds like bullshit to me.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
That's not false, but remember it's completely intentional. A well built network is overprovisioned, as /. readers know from personal experience, but the power grid is not currently well built because of Reaganista cost-cutting and profit-maximizing being prioritized over continual upgrade, expansion and maintenance. From 1988 to 1998 demand grew by 30%, while transmission grew by only 15%; from 1999 to 2009 demand grew by 20% and transmission by only 3%. My local energy provider stopped doing any line maintenance for five years straight - and only restarted two years ago because the annual cost of repairs from fallen limbs had significantly exceeded (by 2x according to their annual report) the cost of maintenance. The current business climate is intentionally shortchanging the future, because the consequences of this are easy to monetize. Energy shortages are a desired end goal, as demonstrated by the intentional bottlenecking of path 15 during the fake California energy crisis that everyone blames Enron for (in reality, that situation was created by a vortex of Democrat incompetence, Republican chicanery, and Big Business sociopathy, and Ken Lay was a sacrificial goat).
It's been empirically proven that adding residential solar increases the capacity and reliability of the grid, but only up to a point. Generation of power closer to points of use and across a distributed network decreases (but does not eliminate) the need for huge, costly transmission lines. Guerilla solar has existed for decades, of course, and you may be using power your next-door neighbor illegally placed on the grid right now. Modern non-islanding grid-tie inverters make this a safe and commonplace practice. Saturation is only really possible when you've discontinued hundred-year-old expansion and upkeep plans and defanged public watchdogs through electoral manipulation (such as secret campaign contributions) and political action (such as PAC funding).
It's cheaper and more profitable to break the system in order to maintain central control than it is to return to the days of utility expansionism and empower distributed production. It's the usual hoary old "socialize risk and privatize profits" strategy; the super-rich power producers inevitably win, just by failing to improve the grid in the name of cost management. Don't think Washington doesn't know this!
Yes. Although the need for the overhaul was exhaustively researched and documented before Jimmy Carter left office, the result of those analyses has been that power generators and service providers have vastly increased the resources they devote to political subornation and regulatory capture, in order to avoid building a system that is beneficial to the human race, because it would make their leadership part of the top 20% middle class instead of part of the top 1% jet set.
Exactly. They've built an excuse to do what is the worst possible thing for the human race and for our social and cultu
The important figure of merit here is price per kWh of storage.
I agree. I asked about density because I assume that, if the energy density is low, that it will be prohibitively expensive. If a battery that can provide power to a city needs a city-sized tank of liquid, that would be expensive (in real estate cost if nothing else). But you are right, I don't actually care about the density, I care about whether this "pencils out" economically.
As long as it can provide grid-level power at a reasonable cost, it's interesting.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Stop spread FUD. The vast majority of solar cells are polycrystalline silicon. Nitrogen triflouride is only used for etching thin film solar cells, which requires only small amounts of the gas. In addition, flourine can be used directly, or the unused nitrogen triflouride can be captured.
Yeah; the use of battery has become almost as bad as the use of magazine
Um, I think you guys' pedantry is a bit misplaced here. 1.5 volt flashlight batteries all have only one cell, and they've called them "batteries" since electrical batteries were invented. In fact, the only battery I think I have that is more than one cell is the one in the smoke alarm. Websters says:
Free Martian Whores!
1: You're quoting the MWD -- I can find all sorts of slang that it defines.
2: Battery has been used to refer to single cells for around 40 years, which is why I commented as I did -- "Magazine" has been in disuse even longer.
So basically, the words in common usage have shifted meaning so much that a) most people don't even know the original term anymore and b) it's now almost impossible to figure out what the word means by picking apart its components (a flashlight battery -- does it hurt?). Other words that have shifted like this include gay, nice and toilet.
Just to clarify that my pedantry is aimed at pedants, not at the current common use of the term "battery" :)
However, even the OED considers a single cell a "battery" now:
[T]he only battery I think I have that is more than one cell is the one in the smoke alarm.
What about lead-acid car batteries? Or lithium batteries for your computer?
You're right, I forgot about those.
Free Martian Whores!