We’ve seen so many press releases for a new battery technology that seems almost to good to be true over the years. A lot of them were and never made it past the press release. Here’s to hoping this one isn’t one of those.
From the University of Southern California
USC scientists create new battery that’s cheap, clean, rechargeable… and organic
Scientists at USC have developed a water-based organic battery that is long lasting, built from cheap, eco-friendly components.
The new battery – which uses no metals or toxic materials – is intended for use in power plants, where it can make the energy grid more resilient and efficient by creating a large-scale means to store energy for use as needed.
“The batteries last for about 5,000 recharge cycles, giving them an estimated 15-year lifespan,” said Sri Narayan, professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and corresponding author of a paper describing the new batteries that was published online by the Journal of the Electrochemical Society on June 20. “Lithium ion batteries degrade after around 1,000 cycles, and cost 10 times more to manufacture.”
Narayan collaborated with Surya Prakash, Prakash, professor of chemistry and director of the USC Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute, as well as USC’s Bo Yang, Lena Hoober-Burkhardt, and Fang Wang.
“Such organic flow batteries will be game-changers for grid electrical energy storage in terms of simplicity, cost, reliability and sustainability,” said Prakash.
The batteries could pave the way for renewable energy sources to make up a greater share of the nation’s energy generation. Solar panels can only generate power when the sun’s shining, and wind turbines can only generate power when the wind blows. That inherent unreliability makes it difficult for power companies to rely on them to meet customer demand.
With batteries to store surplus energy and then dole it out as needed, that sporadic unreliability could cease to be such an issue.
“‘Mega-scale’ energy storage is a critical problem in the future of the renewable energy, requiring inexpensive and eco-friendly solutions,” Narayan said.
The new battery is based on a redox flow design – similar in design to a fuel cell, with two tanks of electroactive materials dissolved in water. The solutions are pumped into a cell containing a membrane between the two fluids with electrodes on either side, releasing energy.
The design has the advantage of decoupling power from energy. The tanks of electroactive materials can be made as large as needed – increasing total amount of energy the system can store – or the central cell can be tweaked to release that energy faster or slower, altering the amount of power (energy released over time) that the system can generate.
The team’s breakthrough centered around the electroactive materials. While previous battery designs have used metals or toxic chemicals, Narayan and Prakash wanted to find an organic compound that could be dissolved in water. Such a system would create a minimal impact on the environment, and would likely be cheap, they figured.
Through a combination of molecule design and trial-and-error, they found that certain naturally occurring quinones – oxidized organic compounds – fit the bill. Quinones are found in plants, fungi, bacteria, and some animals, and are involved in photosynthesis and cellular respiration.
“These are the types of molecules that nature uses for energy transfer,” Narayan said.
Currently, the quinones needed for the batteries are manufactured from naturally occurring hydrocarbons. In the future, the potential exists to derive them from carbon dioxide, Narayan said.
The team has filed several patents in regards to design of the battery, and next plans to build a larger scale version.
This research was funded by the ARPA-E Open-FOA program (DE-AR0000337), the University of Southern California, and the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute.
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Here is the paper, which is open access.
An Inexpensive Aqueous Flow Battery for Large-Scale Electrical Energy Storage Based on Water-Soluble Organic Redox Couples
Abstract
We introduce a novel Organic Redox Flow Battery (ORBAT), for meeting the demanding requirements of cost, eco-friendliness, and durability for large-scale energy storage. ORBAT employs two different water-soluble organic redox couples on the positive and negative side of a flow battery. Redox couples such as quinones are particularly attractive for this application. No precious metal catalyst is needed because of the fast proton-coupled electron transfer processes. Furthermore, in acid media, the quinones exhibit good chemical stability. These properties render quinone-based redox couples very attractive for high-efficiency metal-free rechargeable batteries. We demonstrate the rechargeability of ORBAT with anthraquinone-2-sulfonic acid or anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonic acid on the negative side, and 1,2-dihydrobenzoquinone- 3,5-disulfonic acid on the positive side. The ORBAT cell uses a membrane-electrode assembly configuration similar to that used in polymer electrolyte fuel cells. Such a battery can be charged and discharged multiple times at high faradaic efficiency without any noticeable degradation of performance. We show that solubility and mass transport properties of the reactants and products are paramount to achieving high current densities and high efficiency. The ORBAT configuration presents a unique opportunity for developing an inexpensive and sustainable metal-free rechargeable battery for large-scale electrical energy storage.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse of the work in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Full text: http://jes.ecsdl.org/content/161/9/A1371.full.pdf
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I’m not any kind of authority on battery tech. However, it seems to me that there is a commonly overlooked hazard to these type things. I.e., how do you ensure that massive amounts of stored energy do not get released suddenly, with catastrophic effect?
I mean, if we’re talking about hours, days, or even months of storage for every power consuming household and business in a given region, we are talking about some major equivalent tons of TNT. How stable are these devices? Does anyone know? Does that stability scale to the massive size which would be required? Those are things I would like to know.
National Power in the UK tried to commission an industrial sized flow battery system about 15 years ago. That was based on a bromide electrolyte I think. The product was called Regenysys and was sold off to venture capitalists if memory serves.
This technology or something equivalent is essential in my opinion in making renewables worthwhile. Because whilst we can’t store electricity in meaningful amounts and require conventional back up they’re an expensive irrelevance.
All nice and dandy, but when you run climatecontrol in full summer or deepwinter not even the best battery is going to keep up the pace and will eventually be much less longerlived then rated lifespan.
Batteries aren’t a viable solution for anything else then the subtropics. In eastern europe people actually drive around with oilfueled heaters in their electric cars….
Just another pipedream, wasted effort, wasted money, wasted time, wasted talent. Such a shame humankind is so shortsighted
I think DavidMHoffer hit the nail on the head.
If this worked, it would be simple to build a scaled version and of course patent the technology.
Why haven’t they done that?
I’m just waiting for the day when someone patents a CO2 energy capture device, because let’s face it…if CO2 at 400ppm can trap enough energy to heat the atmosphere of the entire earth, then CO2 at 100% purity in solar arrays, should trap and amplify enough heat to drive power stations…shouldn’t it?
Scientists at USC have developed a water-based organic battery that is long lasting, built from cheap, eco-friendly components.
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yeah, yeah, yeah.
With a headline-grabbing, eco-grant begging, bandwagon jumping, fiscally incontenent sentence like that, you know this project is doomed to failure. These are not scientists, they are scio-snake oil salesmen, the white-coated hucksters of the 21st century.
I would give them 0.0001% chance of sucess. After three grant allocations have kept them afloat for two years, the auditors will be in looking at where all our money had gone, and find yet another Green-Black hole.
Ralph
1,2-dihydrobenzoquinone- 3,5-disulfonic acid
Hmmmm. Sounds organic. Can I put it on my fairtrade cornflakes?
And, yes, I understand it may have been originally used in the context of “organic chemistry”, but the context in the article here was that these compounds are “eco-friendly”. Clearly, they’re not.
Dr. Punnett says:
June 25, 2014 at 10:10 pm
“Anthony: This has already been done! CellCube sold by American Vanadium Corp. and already in production. Proven technology, German engineering via Guildemeister. 20 year lifespan and unlimited charge cycles. Scaleable to whatever size you want. Just add another Cube.”
Interesting. Vanadium based flow battery. company page:
http://energy.gildemeister.com/en/store/cellcube-fb-200
I don’t know anything about Quinones; but compared to anorganic stuff, my question would be: How stable are they at operating temperature. A battery is no use when the charge carriers decide to undergo chemical reactions over time.
Jake J June 25, 2014 at 11:00 pm
“You seem vehement. And condescending. Do you live in London?”
Those of us on this side of the pond, vehement and condescending though we always are (it’s a point of principle, actually), never use the word “heck” in that way. You need to look closer to home.
That can be a serious consideration with batteries and capacitors, once they start to store seriously useful energy densities. Ask Boeing.
Such self-discharge cannot readily occur with the type described here because it is of the flow-cell type which requires an active movement of reacting chemicals which can be stored well apart: A sealed tank of fuel cannot burn without oxygen [hydrocarbons are a marvellous high-density way of storing energy for as long as required].
In this case there is also a large amount of water already present. That which makes it less useful and less ‘interesting’ also makes it safe from a fire/explosion point of view.
Maybe Anthony can have an power transmission design engineer write a post on how the grid would/could be engineered for batteries. Use a real life city, like Houston or Phoenix or Los Angeles where the power service of the “grid” is measured in the mega and giga watts. I’d mostly interested in how sudden drops and spikes, aka “power bumps”, are avoided.
I suspect the use of batteries is more complex than most realize. Would they work like some gigantic uninterruptable power supply (UPS)? Something like the ones you use in your home to keep your PC gear running during power bumps and transients. They’re about $300-500+/- and last a few years, depending. For us non-electrical engineers, using something like a typical 12v car battery as a baseline and presume 2 12v batteries per cubic foot. One answer would be 12v battry equivalents in terms of space and number. Estimating a cost would be a bonus.
And why have “the utilities” pay for this add-on. Make the consumer foot the bill for the upfront cost and maintenance. Just mandate each consumer location install a UPS system which will be able to run long enough to cover all the power bumps from switching. Better, have the power utilities install UPS systems at each location and charge the consumer for the “upgrade” to renewable energy. One can even have government provide loans, similar to the student loan program, and even have the utlility tack that onto the monthly power bill – just like all those other taxes you find on utility bills. Maybe the engineer could estimate the cost for the at-home solution. Who knows, maybe each consumer would find it cheaper to simple install their own ethanol burning electric generator. Or maybe 10 houses can create a home-power generation co-op and use one of those yet-to-be-built save micro nuke generators. Maybe we can just dismantle the grid and save all those birds slaughtered in the windmills?
More ‘lipstick’ for the renewables ‘pig’…. I have not yet seen pumped storage mentioned on WUWT as an energy storage option . Cape Town’s Palmiet and ESKOM’s Drakensberg pumped storage schemes use off-peak generating capacity to pump up to a storage reservoir for generating hydropower during peak demand.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
The actual paper is dense, nothing apparent in a 60-second scan. Perhaps it will be informative when I can dig into it. Regardless, it sounds too good to be true.
There are good comments here to get one started in delving into the possibilities.
One practical factor is simply size. If these things are enormous, which is the sense I have from the press release, then they are probably not practical, even for the stated purpose, certainly not for portable storage, such as in an automobile.
As an engineer, batteries are for DC backup systems & emergency lighting. OK, maybe a forklift or a golf cart too….
Col Mosby says:
June 25, 2014 at 6:52 pm
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One of the big problems with renewables is the speed with which they can cut out. They can go from full power to now power in a matter of minutes, and you never know when it will happen.
This requires that your back up power be kept running at nearly full power so that it can take over at a moments notice. If you had enough battery backup to last for a few hours to a few days, you can then keep your backup power source at standby, there will be enough time to bring it up to full power before the batteries run dry.
You don’t save the cost of building all that backup, but you don’t have the cost of running that back up at near full power when it isn’t needed anymore.
Jake J says:
June 25, 2014 at 7:44 pm
Hard to imagine this being a big issue given the application to renewables. Surely there’s enough room within most windmill farms for them.
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I thought we were supposed to use the area between the windmills for farming and ranching?
Actually there are non-naturally occurring hydrocarbons. Several research efforts have used electric power, CO2 and H2O to produce hydrocarbon chains. The problem of course is you have to put more electric power in than the energy capacity of the produced hydrocarbons, but that’s thermodynamics for you. Most of the research is into what catalysts can be found to optimize the hydrocarbons produced per watt. It actually would be a great way to store energy from an intermittent power source, There are also fewer loses in transporting methane than electrons.
If we were ever to reach an end to “fossil” hydrocarbons, a nuclear plant and CO2 sequestration product could produce all the methane we would want.
Just wait, they’ll be found to cause cancer in one-eyed newts in southern british columbia, and thus will be permanently banned from production.
Yes, the final piece of the 3 piece puzzle falls into place.
First you build the wind farms to harvest the energy when the wind is blowing. Second, you install these super batteries covering thousands of acres around turbines – this will allow energy to be discharged for a few days when the wind doesn’t blow. This becomes stage 1 backup.
Third, you build a gas fired generator to cut in during those longer periods of nil wind during which the stage 1 backup becomes ineffective. That is the stage 2 backup.
With a triage system of such robustness, how can it possibly fail? What’s not to like?
Here is another “feel good” battery story: 1.100 miles range between charges and 1/3 of the weight of the Tesla Battery. The Aluminum Air Battery developed by Alcoa and an Israeli Company called Phinergy is advertised as a “game changer” but….there are a few problems to be solved.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/06/17/israels-phinergy-tests-1100-mile-range-electric-car-aluminum-air-battery-system-video/
In the mean time I am still waiting for the 2.000 USD fridge sized battery able to run the entire household for 48 hours without charging.
The advertised date of market entry was set for 2010 but but their web site was no longer available.
What I do remember is the millions of State, Doe Credits and subsidies that were made available.
Free money for feel good nonsense projects often pushed by Wired.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it?
When will they ever learn.
Battery producing microAmps current at 0.1 V volatage and discharging in 2500 seconds… “Great” result that one would expect from a gov. funded research. Just another example of over hyped research that will never deliver what was promised. We really are in some sort of crisis of science and engineering. How to fix it?
the tech itself may be useful but their reasons for development (store wind/solar) are stupid.
would like to see how these would work as household backups used to supply during generator startup. I don’t have whole house generator myself (backfeed with portable) but was thinking these could be useful there.
and as far as cars….don’t see many electrics here in Maine. the need to heat vehicle in -20F weather and deal with ice/snow is pretty huge draw on battery. do see hybrids…usually as I am passing them even with 2k lb + on trailer on back of crown vic…
Spell check failure alert:
Peter Miller says:
June 25, 2014 at 11:33 pm
Another contender for Rule #1:
Be careful what you wish for.
All the hot air about emerging battery technology helps keep the wind turbines spinning, and provides plausible justification to keep this green scam going.
With our enormous reserves of coal and other fossil fuels, and with the CAGW conjecture in tatters, there is absolutely no valid reason to cast our fate with the whirligigs, irrespective of battery technology.
Simple solutions are always better than complicated ones.
Nothing can improve a bad idea.
Jake J says:
June 25, 2014 at 7:57 pm
“Sorry, but this is an issue that I am quite deeply familiar with. ”
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Perhaps you can address something that has always puzzled me and seems to get no attention. If electric cars become the norm, where will the energy come from to recharge so many vehicles daily (or nightly)? What will the energy requirement be to recharge, let’s say, 100 million vehicles at least once per day?
In my experience performance estimates for novel technology (‘5000 cycles’, 15-year lifespan) are invariably optimistic, especially when produced by the marketing department. As I rule of thumb for cost-benefit analyses of products still in the prototype stage, (and all major capital projects still in the proposal stage, for that matter), I find costs are usually underestimated by half, and benefits are usually overestimated by double.
In the words of Randy Glasbergen, “I can complete the project under budget and ahead of schedule, but you will have to allocate additional time and money for that.”