MSGID: 1:317/3 64acdb2a   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Next-generation flow battery design sets records    
    Sugar additive plays a surprise role, boosting flow battery capacity and   
   longevity for this grid energy resilience design    
      
     Date:   
         July 10, 2023   
     Source:   
         DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory   
     Summary:   
         A new flow battery design achieves long life and capacity for grid   
         energy storage from renewable fuels.   
      
      
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   A common food and medicine additive has shown it can boost the capacity   
   and longevity of a next-generation flow battery design in a record-setting   
   experiment.   
      
   A research team from the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest   
   National Laboratory reports that the flow battery, a design optimized   
   for electrical grid energy storage, maintained its capacity to store and   
   release energy for more than a year of continuous charge and discharge.   
      
   The study, just published in the journal Joule, details the first use of   
   a dissolved simple sugar called b-cyclodextrin, a derivative of starch,   
   to boost battery longevity and capacity. In a series of experiments,   
   the scientists optimized the ratio of chemicals in the system until it   
   achieved 60 percent more peak power. Then they cycled the battery over   
   and over for more than a year, only stopping the experiment when the   
   plastic tubing failed. During all that time, the flow battery barely   
   lost any of its activity to recharge. This is the first laboratory-scale   
   flow battery experiment to report more than a year of continuous use   
   with minimal loss of capacity.   
      
   The b-cyclodextrin additive is also the first to speed the electrochemical   
   reaction that stores and then releases the flow battery energy, in a   
   process called homogeneous catalysis. This means the sugar does its work   
   while dissolved in solution, rather than as a solid applied to a surface.   
      
   "This is a brand new approach to developing flow battery electrolyte,"   
   said Wei Wang, a long-time PNNL battery researcher and the principal   
   investigator of the study. "We showed that you can use a totally different   
   type of catalyst designed to accelerate the energy conversion. And   
   further, because it is dissolved in the liquid electrolyte it eliminates   
   the possibility of a solid dislodging and fouling the system."  What is a   
   flow battery?  As their name suggests, flow batteries consist of two   
   chambers, each filled with a different liquid. The batteries charge   
   through an electrochemical reaction and store energy in chemical   
   bonds. When connected to an external circuit, they release that energy,   
   which can power electrical devices. Flow batteries differ from solid-state   
   batteries in that they have two external supply tanks of liquid constantly   
   circulating through them to supply the electrolyte, which is like the   
   "blood supply" for the system. The larger the electrolyte supply tank,   
   the more energy the flow battery can store.   
      
   If they are scaled up to the size of a football field or more, flow   
   batteries can serve as backup generators for the electric grid. Flow   
   batteries are one of the key pillars of a decarbonization strategy to   
   store energy from renewable energy resources. Their advantage is that   
   they can be built at any scale, from the lab-bench scale, as in the PNNL   
   study, to the size of a city block.   
      
   Why do we need new kinds of flow batteries?  Large-scale energy storage   
   provides a kind of insurance policy against disruption to our electrical   
   grid. When severe weather or high demand hobble the ability to supply   
   electricity to homes and businesses, energy stored in large-scale flow   
   battery facilities can help minimize disruption or restore service. The   
   need for these flow battery facilities is only expected to grow, as   
   electricity generation increasingly comes from renewable energy sources,   
   such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power. Intermittent power sources   
   such as these require a place to store energy until it's needed to meet   
   consumer demand.   
      
   While there are many flow battery designs and some commercial   
   installations, existing commercial facilities rely on mined minerals   
   such as vanadium that are costly and difficult to obtain. That's why   
   research teams are seeking effective alternative technologies that use   
   more common materials that are easily synthesized, stable and non-toxic.   
      
   "We cannot always dig the Earth for new materials," said Imre Gyuk,   
   director of energy storage research at DOE's Office of Electricity. "We   
   need to develop a sustainable approach with chemicals that we can   
   synthesize in large amounts - - just like the pharmaceutical and the   
   food industries."  The work on flow batteries is part of a large program   
   at PNNL to develop and test new technologies for grid-scale energy storage   
   that will be accelerated with the opening of PNNL's Grid Storage Launchpad   
   in 2024.   
      
   A benign 'sugar water' sweetens the pot for an effective flow battery   
   The PNNL research team that developed this new battery design includes   
   researchers with backgrounds in organic and chemical synthesis. These   
   skills came in handy when the team chose to work with materials that   
   had not been used for battery research, but which are already produced   
   for other industrial uses.   
      
   "We were looking for a simple way to dissolve more fluorenol in our   
   water-based electrolyte," said Ruozhu Feng, the first author of the   
   new study. "The b- cyclodextrin helped do that, modestly, but it's   
   real benefit was this surprising catalytic ability."  The researchers   
   then worked with co-author Sharon Hammes-Schiffer of Yale University,   
   a leading authority on the chemical reaction underlying the catalytic   
   boost, to explain how it works.   
      
   As described in the research study, the sugar additive accepts   
   positively charged protons, which helps balance out the movement of   
   negative electrons as the battery discharges. The details are a bit more   
   complicated, but it's like the sugar sweetens the pot to allow the other   
   chemicals to complete their chemical dance.   
      
   The study is the next generation of a PNNL-patented flow battery design   
   first described in the journal Science in 2021. There, the researchers   
   showed that another common chemical, called fluorenone, is an effective   
   flow battery component. But that initial breakthrough needed improvement   
   because the process was slow compared with commercialized flow battery   
   technology. This new advance makes the battery design a candidate for   
   scale up, the researchers say.   
      
   At the same time, the research team is working to further improve   
   the system by experimenting with other compounds that are similar   
   to b-cyclodextrin but smaller. Like honey, b-cyclodextrin addition   
   also makes the liquid thicker, which is less than ideal for a flowing   
   system. Nonetheless, the researchers found its benefits outweighed   
   its drawbacks.   
      
   Understanding the complex chemistry happening inside the new flow battery   
   design required the expertise of many scientists, including Ying Chen,   
   Xin Zhang, Peiyuan Gao, Ping Chen, Sebastian Mergelsberg, Lirong Zhong,   
   Aaron Hollas, Yangang Lian, Vijayakumar Murugesan, Qian Huang, Eric Walter   
   and Yuyan Shao of PNNL, and Benjamin J. G. Rousseau and Hammes-Schiffer   
   of Yale, in addition to Feng and Wang.   
      
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   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   DOE/Pacific_Northwest_National_Laboratory. Original written by Karyn   
   Hede. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Ruozhu Feng, Ying Chen, Xin Zhang, Benjamin J.G. Rousseau,   
      Peiyuan Gao,   
         Ping Chen, Sebastian T. Mergelsberg, Lirong Zhong, Aaron Hollas,   
         Yangang Liang, Vijayakumar Murugesan, Qian Huang, Eric Walter,   
         Sharon Hammes- Schiffer, Yuyan Shao, Wei Wang. Proton-regulated   
         alcohol oxidation for high-capacity ketone-based flow battery   
         anolyte. Joule, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2023.06.013   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/07/230710180520.htm   
      
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