Researchers at Sandia National Laboratory have developed a series of new liquid salt electrolytes, so-called MetILs, which make the batteries cost-effective and store energy three times higher than current batteries the above.
The study, published in the Dalton Transactions, can bring some equipment to help economically and reliably integrate large-scale intermittent renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, into the national grid.
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have discovered a new liquid salt electrolyte that can be used to make batteries with a three-fold increase in energy density over other existing storage technologies. These so-called MetILs, from left to right, are: copper-based compounds, cobalt-based compounds, manganese-based compounds, iron-based compounds, nickel-based compounds and vanadium-based compounds. Source: Sandia National Laboratory
The design of the power grid is for stable energy, so that because the fluctuating power is derived from intermittent renewable energy, it is difficult to adapt. Better energy storage technologies can balance these flowing and fluctuating energy sources, and Sandia National Laboratory researchers are working on new methods to develop more flexible, cost-effective, and reliable power grids to improve energy storage.
"Both the United States and the world need to make great breakthroughs in battery technology to replace today's carbon-based energy systems with renewable energy," said Anthony Medina, director of the high-energy component realization project at Sandia National Laboratory. "Mytel solution is a new and promising chemical battery that may bring the next generation of power station battery technology, replacing lead-acid batteries and lithium-ion batteries, and bringing great energy storage density to these applications."
Over the past 20 years, lithium-ion batteries have been cutting-edge energy storage research. Their compact and lightweight design is very suitable for mobile phones, notebook computers and personal electronic products, but lithium-ion batteries are expensive, and degradation problems prevent them from entering high-capacity applications in power stations, which is used in the national power grid.
Sandia National Laboratory researchers and inorganic chemist Travis Anderson (Travis Anderson) led a team to develop the next-generation flow battery. This kind of flow battery pumps a solution, which is a free-floating charged metal ion. This ion is dissolved in the electrolyte. The free-floating ions in the solution can conduct electricity. The solution passes through the electrochemical cell from an external container. Chemical energy is converted into electrical energy. Flow batteries can be quickly charged and discharged, and only need to change the state of charge of the electrolyte, this electroactive substance is easy to reuse many times. Anderson said that the flow battery can maintain more than 14,000 cycles, which is in the laboratory, equivalent to more than 20 years of energy storage, which is unusual in lithium-ion batteries.
However, the flow battery grid storage system, roughly the size of a house, costs more than the same lithium-ion battery. The researchers' goal is to make flow batteries smaller and cheaper, while increasing the energy storage, or energy density, of a given volume.
Flow batteries have been used in the United States, Japan and Australia. A large number of systems, up to 25 megawatts, are in the demonstration stage. According to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), the manager is the Energy Storage System Research Project of the Department of Energy. Zincbromine and vanadium redox systems are the biggest competitors. However, the materials used are moderately toxic and vanadium has large price fluctuations. In addition, aqueous solutions limit the amount of material that can be dissolved and how much energy can be stored, and outdoor temperature will reduce performance.
Sandia National Laboratory pioneered research on flow batteries to avoid these problems because no water is used. Anderson formed a multidisciplinary team with experts from several laboratories, including electrochemistry David Ingersoll, organic chemist Chad Staige, and chemical technician Harry Pratt ( Harry Pratt) and Jonathan Leonard. They designed a new type of electrochemically reversible, metal-based ionic liquids, or MetILs (MetILs), which use cheap and non-toxic materials that are easily available in the United States, such as iron and copper ,manganese.
"Rather than dissolving salt into a solvent, our salt is a solvent," Anderson said. "We can get a very high concentration of active metal because we are not limited by saturation. It is actually in the formula. Therefore, we can increase the energy density three times cost-effectively, which can greatly reduce the size of the battery. , Just because of the nature of the material. "
The electrochemical efficiency, or reverse charging performance, is much higher in the Maitel solution, far more than anything else published so far. The research team has prepared nearly 200 combinations of cations, anions and ligands and such substances, five of which exceed the electrochemical efficiency of ferrocene, which has long been considered the gold standard.
A common problem is that by mixing positively and negatively charged components, these components will start to gather together and eventually make the solution viscous, blocking the battery membrane and electrode surface. The research team solved this challenge. They developed asymmetric cations, or positively charged ions, which are like a football. In this analogy, black pentagons represent negatively charged regions, and white hexagons represent positively charged regions. This arrangement lowers the melting point because it prevents the ionic liquid components from bonding to form a solid, and at the same time, part of the charge still allows electrons to flow freely through the battery, generating electrical current.
The research team was funded by the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability of the US Department of Energy. Imre Gyuk is the energy storage system project manager for this office and has been supporting this work at Sandia National Laboratory and has provided the necessary funding.
"The Metier solution method represents a clever off-the-shelf solution and is a cathode / electrolyte polymer. Coca said," Because it uses off-the-shelf, inexpensive precursors, it is likely to bring innovation The cost-effective storage system will greatly affect the entire US power grid. "
The results of this study are applicable to new cathode materials for flow batteries. The next step for the Sandia National Laboratory team was to find similar materials for the anodes of flow batteries. The researchers were encouraged by their progress.
"Anderson said," There are three factors that you need to consider at the same time, and they are not always related: this is viscosity, conductivity, and basic electrochemical efficiency. "What's exciting is that all three factors are suitable at the same time. It's like looking for treasure, but there is no map. We are creating this map. We are very excited and have this possibility."
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