White-hot thermal grid battery aims to decimate lithium on price
By Loz Blain
December 14, 2023
Fourth Power says its ultra-high temperature "sun in a box" energy storage tech is more than 10X cheaper than lithium-ion batteries, and vastly more powerful and efficient than any other thermal battery. It's hoping to prove it with a 1-MWh prototype.
As a grid-level energy storage solution, Fourth aims to compete with big lithium battery arrays in the short-duration 5-10 hour range – basically storing excess solar energy during the heat of the day for use in the evening and at night when generation drops off. But the company says it's also relevant up to the 100-hour stage, which would cover the "several days of bad weather and poor renewable generation" case.
This is one of a number of thermal energy storage companies coming up out of Massachusetts and backed by Bill Gates's Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund. You might remember Antora Energy from a few months ago, with its ultra-hot carbon block batteries and high-efficiency thermophotovoltaic energy converters, for example.
Electrolytes are key battery components that transfer charge carrying particles (i.e., ions) back and forth between two electrodes, ultimately allowing batteries to repeatedly charge and discharge. Engineering and identifying promising electrolytes can help to improve the performance and properties of batteries, allowing them to better support the needs of the electronics industry.
Lithium-metal batteries (LMBs) are a promising class of batteries that have been found to have numerous advantageous properties, including longer battery use per single charge. However, electrodes in these batteries are prone to become corroded when exposed to some chemicals, which makes the design of suitable liquid electrolytes for these batteries challenging.
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and LG Energy Solution in South Korea recently engineered a new liquid electrolyte for LMBs based on lean borate-pyran. Their paper, published in Nature Energy, shows that this electrolyte could minimize corrosion in LMBs, while retaining their performance.
New Material Allows for Better Hydrogen-based Batteries and Fuel Cells December 21, 2023
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) Researchers led by Genki Kobayashi at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research in Japan have developed a solid electrolyte for transporting hydride ions (H−) at room temperature. This breakthrough means that the advantages of hydrogen-based solid-state batteries and fuel cells are within practical reach, including improved safety, efficiency, and energy density, which are essential for advancing towards a practical hydrogen-based energy economy. The study was published in the scientific journal Advanced Energy Materials.
For hydrogen-based energy storage and fuel to become more widespread, it needs to be safe, very efficient, and as simple as possible. Current hydrogen-based fuel cells used in electric cars work by allowing hydrogen protons to pass from one end of the fuel cell to the other through a polymer membrane when generating energy. Efficient, high-speed hydrogen movement in these fuel cells requires water, meaning that the membrane must be continually hydrated so that it does not dry out. This constraint adds an additional layer of complexity and cost to battery and fuel cell design that limits the practicality of a next-generation hydrogen-based energy economy. To overcome this problem, scientists have been struggling to find a way to conduct negative hydride ions through solid materials, particularly at room temperature.
The wait is over. “We have achieved a true milestone,” says Kobayashi. “Our result is the first demonstration of a hydride ion-conducting solid electrolyte at room temperature.”
Polymer-air batteries often face challenges related to stability, kinetics and conductivity. In response, Dr. Jodie Lutkenhaus has developed a method to use a polymer as an anode in these batteries.
In a recent article published in Joule, Lutkenhaus, associate department head of internal engagement and chemical engineering professor at Texas A&M University, collaborated with chemical engineering professor Dr. Abdoulaye Djire to reveal how these polymers store and exchange charge with the electrolyte.
"The cathode reacts with oxygen from air to complete the circuit. We specifically targeted the use of a conjugated polymer with a rigid backbone structure for the anode," Lutkenhaus said.
These features make the polymer both conductive and stable, enabling the necessary reversible reactions required for repeated charging and discharging, she said.
Despite the benefits of aqueous polymer-air batteries, including improved safety, reduced cost, higher ionic conductivity and sustainability, their electrochemical performance is limited, the article stated.
Solid State Battery Design Charges in Minutes and Lasts for Thousands of Cycles January 8, 2024
Introduction:
(Eurekalert) Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new lithium metal battery that can be charged and discharged at least 6,000 times — more than any other pouch battery cell — and can be recharged in a matter of minutes.
The research not only describes a new way to make solid state batteries with a lithium metal anode but also offers new understanding into the materials used for these potentially revolutionary batteries.
The research is published in Nature Materials.
“Lithium metal anode batteries are considered the holy grail of batteries because they have ten times the capacity of commercial graphite anodes and could drastically increase the driving distance of electric vehicles,” said Xin Li, Associate Professor of Materials Science at SEAS and senior author of the paper. “Our research is an important step toward more practical solid state batteries for industrial and commercial applications.”
One of the biggest challenges in the design of these batteries is the formation of dendrites on the surface of the anode. These structures grow like roots into the electrolyte and pierce the barrier separating the anode and cathode, causing the battery to short or even catch fire.
Many electric vehicles are powered by batteries that contain cobalt—a metal that carries high financial, environmental, and social costs.
MIT researchers have now designed a battery material that could offer a more sustainable way to power electric cars. The new lithium-ion battery includes a cathode based on organic materials, instead of cobalt or nickel (another metal often used in lithium-ion batteries).
In a new study, the researchers showed that this material, which could be produced at much lower cost than cobalt-containing batteries, can conduct electricity at similar rates as cobalt batteries. The new battery also has comparable storage capacity and can be charged up faster than cobalt batteries, the researchers report.
"I think this material could have a big impact because it works really well," says Mircea Dincă, the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT. "It is already competitive with incumbent technologies, and it can save a lot of the cost and pain and environmental issues related to mining the metals that currently go into batteries."
Dincă is the senior author of the study, which is published today (Jan. 18) in the journal ACS Central Science. Tianyang Chen Ph.D. '23 and Harish Banda, a former MIT postdoc, are the lead authors of the paper. Other authors include Jiande Wang, an MIT postdoc; Julius Oppenheim, an MIT graduate student; and Alessandro Franceschi, a research fellow at the University of Bologna.
