.
Wind & Wave Energy could
Benefit Greatly
if this new battery
can be developed.
It works and lights a LED bulb - New Concept Flow Battery
A research team from the U.S.
Department of Energy's National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford
University have devised what just might prove to be a relatively
low-cost, long-life flow battery based on Lithium.
Flow batteries are currently the only
viable type of battery to house the very large amount of energy
needed for storing the power from wind turbines.
Current designs are expensive and
difficult to maintain because of the chemistry involved.
This new design might just prove to be
the best design to date.
The need for grid level electrical
storage is growing at a very fast rate because of the rapid growth of
wind farms, wave energy etc. These forms of energy are not on demand
and therefore a high percentage of the energy goes to waste. For
instance, the wind may blow best at night when there is the least
need for power. All that excess power goes completely to waste. If it
could be stored, it would make the use of clean energy far more
efficient.
This new flow battery offers a much
simpler and less expensive design, and additionally have the advantage
of a long working life – unlike some current flow batteries.
Current types of flow batteries utilise
pumps to circulate two different liquids through an interaction tank
where the business takes place. The workings involve the use of a
membrane that separates the liquids but allows the reaction to take
place. The disadvantages are (1) the price of liquids with costly
rare materials such as vanadium, and the delicate membrane which is
both costly and requires lots of maintenance.
The new design uses only a single stream of liquid, and
therefore does not require a membrane. The chemicals involved are
relatively inexpensive lithium and sulfur.
The interaction is with a piece of
lithium metal coated with a barrier that permits electrons to pass
without corroding the metal. On the discharge cycle lithium
polysulfides, absorb lithium ions; on charging cycle, they are
released back into the liquid. The chemicals are dissolved in an
organic solvent, which is much less corrosive than current systems.
The research team leader is quoted as
saying that; "In initial lab tests, the new battery also
retained excellent energy-storage performance through more than 2,000
charges and discharges, equivalent to more than 5.5 years of daily
cycles"
Currently the system is only at the
“suck it and see” stage” in a simple glass bottle but it does
work.
Next step – the step that sinks 90+% of
research projects – is to build a full size version and prove it - in the real
world.
Good luck guys.
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