Battery Breakthrough Using Organic Storage

Posted on January 16, 2014  Comments (3)

Battery offers renewable energy breakthrough

a metal-free flow battery that relies on the electrochemistry of naturally abundant, inexpensive, small organic (carbon-based) molecules called quinones, which are similar to molecules that store energy in plants and animals.

The mismatch between the availability of intermittent wind or sunshine and the variable demand is the biggest obstacle to using renewable sources for a large fraction of our electricity. A cost-effective means of storing large amounts of electrical energy could solve this problem.

Flow batteries store energy in chemical fluids contained in external tanks, as with fuel cells, instead of within the battery container itself. The two main components — the electrochemical conversion hardware through which the fluids are flowed (which sets the peak power capacity) and the chemical storage tanks (which set the energy capacity) — may be independently sized. Thus the amount of energy that can be stored is limited only by the size of the tanks. The design permits larger amounts of energy to be stored at lower cost than with traditional batteries.

This looks like a very interesting field of research. Storing power remains one of the challenges for renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. This is especially true if the use is disconnected from the grid, but is even true for grid-connected uses. Especially as increasing the amount of wind and solar energy make it increasingly likely that surplus energy is created at certain times.

The research seems to allow for sensible size home storage setups. At the commercial level the volume needed is very large. Another concern to be addressed is how many cycles the “battery” is good for before it degrades; current experimentation show no degradation after 100 cycles but consumer/commercial usage will need thousands of cycles.

Related: Battery Breakthrough (solid sodium metal mated to a sulphur compound by an extraordinary, paper-thin ceramic membrane)Energy Storage Using Carbon Nanotubes (2006)Chart of Wind Power Generation Capacity Globally 2005-2012Recharge Batteries in Seconds

3 Responses to “Battery Breakthrough Using Organic Storage”

  1. Sam
    January 30th, 2014 @ 2:13 am

    The problem of power storage can be solved by this type battery, hope they could be available in domestic market with less price.

  2. Anonymous
    February 21st, 2014 @ 3:26 am

    problem of power storage can be solved by this type battery, hope they could be available in domestic market with less price.

  3. R M Deshmukh
    February 24th, 2014 @ 4:10 am

    Since many years researchers and scientists are trying to invent an alternate energy source, they did invented too. But, till now it has not been possible to bring such a product in domestic market which can be afforded by a middle class family. It is a current need and a must have future requirement too.

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