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New Type of 'Flow Battery' Can Store 10 Times the Energy of the Next Best Device (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Industrial-scale batteries, known as flow batteries, could one day usher in widespread use of renewable energy—but only if the devices can store large amounts of energy cheaply and feed it to the grid when the sun isn't shining and the winds are calm. That's something conventional flow batteries can't do. Now, researchers report that they've created a novel type of flow battery that uses lithium ion technology—the sort used to power laptops—to store about 10 times as much energy as the most common flow batteries on the market. With a few improvements, the new batteries could make a major impact on the way we store and deliver energy. The research, from the National University of Singapore, has one big flaw in particular: speed. It's 'very innovative' work, says Michael Aziz, a flow battery expert at Harvard University. But he adds that even though the novel battery has a high energy density, the rate at which it delivers that power is 10,000 times slower than conventional flow batteries, far too slow for most applications. Wang and his colleagues acknowledge the limitation, but they say they should be able to improve the delivery rate with further improvements to the membrane and the charge-ferrying redox mediators.
storage of energy in a field vs storage of energy in a chemical potential.
Interesting that the summary explains what a lithium-ion battery is but assumes I know what a charge ferrying redox mediator is. I'm obviously a bit out of touch.
When does the battery become capacitor?
When the voltage across it is directly proportional to percentage of charge.
And they already did, many years ago. That's what "supercapacitors" are: Electrochemical cells where the charge is stored by migrating, but not ionization-state-changing, ions in a solution (rather than by migrating electrons within two conductors (one metal, the other metal or conductive liquid) separated by an insulator, as in a conventional or electrolytic capacitor, or ionization-state-changing ions in the cells of a conventional battery,where the voltage only changes slightly with state of charge until nearly full discharge.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A typical li-ion battery produces ~10Wh. 10000 times less, means 1 mWh. This is roughly what a lemon can produce.
Get your entities/units right. Wh is a measure of energy - in a battery that's storage capacity - something these batteries are supposedly good (10x better) at.
The issue with them is power delivery, which is measured in Watts (or expressed in current at a given voltage, as power=current x voltage) .
Oblig. car analogy: this new battery has a larger fuel tank, but the fuel line to the engine is much smaller.
That's something conventional flow batteries can't do.hat's something conventional flow batteries can't do.
The hell they can't. Industrial-scale Vanadium Redox flow batteries are doing that right now, in utility companies, and have been for a couple years. (In New Zeeland, if I recall correctly.)
I think the reason they're not more widely used already is that they're under patent protection, the company is small, and its owners don't want to license the technology or dilute their equity, so the supply is limited to their ramp-up and funding sources.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
All they have to do is use the optical plasma inductor to take advantage of the phased interface phenomenon.
Thank you. Your analogy explained it to me.
My guess this is simply a typical university press release issued to drum up further financial support and demonstrate that the professors and grad students are not completely wasting their time. Not that I object, I just wouldn't take it too seriously. Remember most reseach leads nowhere.
They chose one of the more expensive commercially available battery technologies for their flow battery? Next I expect them to try to integrate 2 carat diamonds into Lowes brand light fixtures to try to improve their light distribution. The point of an industrial flow battery is storing energy as cheaply as possible, energy density is one of the last considerations. There are of course limitations, but given the choice between something the size of a cargo container with rare earth materials running through it that costs $1 Million dollars or something the size of a grain silo full of cheap and non-toxic compounds for $100,000 the latter is preferable for most applications.
You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting three stories about battery breakthroughs.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Lemon hater!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Color me skeptical. I'll believe it when I see it in commercial production for an affordable price.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
The biggest problem with these higher storage attempts is they all fall on their face because they self discharge at a rate that makes them not very useful.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Vaporware concept applies to battery tech now as well i guess? :P
Speculative headlines should be red.
About 15 years ago, laptops were powered by Nickel Metal Hydride batteries. The patent holders allowed the technology for small batteries, but rights on large format batteries were shelved. These batteries were fast, light weight, and high energy. The patent would have to be close to expiring at this point.
Syntax error, insert ")" to complete Expression
A capacitor stores electricity in a physical form. A battery stores it in chemical form. Capacitors can store energy a lot faster, but have a fraction of the energy per cubic unit volume that a battery does. However, a capacitor can charge and discharge extremely quickly, allowing them to be used to smooth out rectified A/C, for example.
> who wants to bet it won't pan out?
https://xkcd.com/955/
But can you recharge a lemon? I'm actually curious, that would be interesting.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Ok, the 'h' is wrong... fyi (typically my mistake! studied that a loong time ago)
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
No. Usually, when the lemon starts to get down to power tireness, people just change it, with another new, fresh and yellow lemon. You may find lemon stations in most supermarkets (I heard they have some at wallmart)
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
At least he didn't post as AC...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
If I don't plan on transporting the battery it really doesn't matter. What I care about is cost, capacity and how many charges it will hold. Where I am in Ontario the "generation cost" or the cost my supplier pays for electricity typically varies between -2 cents and 70 cents (there are extremes where it will go much higher though). Even at these differences there is no current battery that makes sense for the utilities to deploy. Even pumping water back up a reservoir doesn't make sense because of the wear on the system*. Until we have better storage we really have 2 options if we want to use more wind or solar - bigger grid interconnects or convince people to change there consumption behaviour based on electricity generation.
*yes there are a few places water is pumped back up hill but these aren't used for generation as much as for selling insurance - I'll give you 100 kw of power for 10 minutes while you scramble to get some other form of generation online or get some steel mill to cut consumption.
I have no idea. But you could try to reverse bias a dead lemon equipped with the appropriate electrodes and see if it charges up.
This is something you can test for yourself. Just save the limes for garnishing gin.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
But we never seem to find any of these new technologies finding their way to actual batteries the general public can access.
they're too flow. you need fast batteries
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
"stick your battery where the sun don't shine"
"Yes, that's what we're planning for it, I sense you're upset but do not understand how that relates to your comment"
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Obligatory:
“When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these?
Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons!
Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!”
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Nice! Cave Johnson had some excellent lines.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
There was a video file of (IIRC) HP technicians using a lemon as an incandescent lamp doing the rounds years before YouTube came into existence. Years pre-Slashdot, even!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"