Science Daily reports technicians from University of Groningen in Netherlands just developed a flow battery using an organic compound. This ‘blatter radical’ as they call it does away with the need to use scarce vanadium metal mainly from Russia, China and South Africa. We decided to find out more about this new flow battery with a simple organic electrolyte.
A Quick Recap How Flow Batteries Work
First, vanadium flow batteries store their energy in two separate fluids containing dissolved chemicals of different composition. Then they release the energy to devices by pumping these solutions through an electro chemical cell containing a membrane. Vanadium is a critical component of this energy storage process. But the design is scalable, because larger liquid tanks increase energy capacity.
The University of Groningen scientists decided to develop a flow battery with a simple organic electrolyte instead. They had these three goals when they began:
1… Firstly, a symmetrical battery where both tanks contain the same fluid.
2… Secondly, an organic compound as active material instead of vanadium.
3… Thirdly, they hoped to produce a more stable product with less degradation.
Their project used a stable blatter radical instead of vanadium, and it worked on both sides of the battery. But this is a new concept to us we only partly understand. Watch this video from Laidlaw Scholars Network to learn more about blatter radicals.
Update on Flow Batteries with Simple Organic Electrolyte
The University of Groningen team first tested their symmetrical design in a small prototype version, and it proved to be stable over 275 charge/discharge cycles. But they await thousands more of these repetitions to finally prove their concept before up-scaling their model.
Their symmetrical design means if some of their compound crosses the membrane during use, this is no longer a critical issue. ‘This could result in a slightly higher volume in one of the tanks,’ they admit. ‘But any imbalance is easily restored by simply reversing the polarity.’
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Video Share Link: https://youtu.be/IEwe3qlDFEY
Preview Image: Principles of Flow Batteries
