Source : MIT News<\/p>\n
Professor Donald Sadoway\u2019s research in energy storage could help speed the development of renewable energy.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one major drawback to most proposed renewable-energy sources: their variability. The sun doesn\u2019t shine at night, the wind doesn\u2019t always blow, and tides, waves and currents fluctuate. That\u2019s why many researchers have been pursuing ways of storing the power generated by these sources so that it can be used when it\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n
So far, those solutions have tended to be too expensive, limited to only certain areas, or difficult to scale up sufficiently to meet the demands. Many researchers are struggling to overcome these limitations, but MIT professor Donald Sadoway has come up with an innovative approach that has garnered significant interest \u2014 and some major funding.<\/p>\n
The idea is to build an entirely new kind of battery, whose key components would be kept at high temperature so that they would stay entirely in liquid form. The experimental devices currently being tested in Sadoway\u2019s lab work in a way that\u2019s never been attempted in batteries before.<\/p>\n
This month, the newly established federal agency ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy) announced its first 37 energy-research grants out of a pool of 3,600 applications, and Sadoway\u2019s project to develop utility-scale batteries received one of the largest sums \u2014 almost $7 million over five years. And within a few days of the ARPA-E announcement, the French oil company Total \u2014 the world\u2019s fifth-largest \u2014 announced a $4 million, five-year joint venture with MIT to develop a smaller-scale version of the same technology, suitable for use in individual homes or other buildings.<\/p>\n
Because the technology is being patented and could lead to very large-scale commercialization, Sadoway will not discuss the details of the materials being used. But both Sadoway and ARPA-E say the battery is based on low-cost, domestically available liquid metals that have the potential to shatter the cost barrier to large-scale energy storage as part of the nation’s energy grid. In announcing its funding of Sadoway\u2019s work, ARPA-E said the battery technology \u201ccould revolutionize the way electricity is used and produced on the grid, enabling round-the-clock power from America’s wind and solar power resources, increasing the stability of the grid, and making blackouts a thing of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrew Chung, a principal at Lightspeed Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif., which has no equity stake in Sadoway\u2019s project at this point, says that \u201cgrid-scale storage is an area that\u2019s set to explode in the next decade or so,\u201d and is one that his company is following closely. The liquid battery concept Sadoway is developing \u201cis an exciting approach to solving the problem,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Big is beautiful<\/strong><\/p>\n Most battery research, Sadoway says, has been aimed at improving storage for portable or mobile systems such as cellphones, computers and cars. The requirements for such systems, including very low weight and high safety, are very different from the needs of a grid-scale, fixed-location battery system. \u201cWhat I did was completely ignore the conventional technology used for portable power,\u201d he says. The different set of requirements for stationary systems \u201copens up a whole new range of possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n A large, utility-owned system \u201cdoesn\u2019t have to be crash-worthy; it doesn\u2019t have to be \u2018idiot-proof\u2019 because it won\u2019t be in the hands of the consumer.\u201d And while consumers are willing to pay high prices, pound-for-pound, for the small batteries used in high-value portable devices, the biggest constraint on utility-sized systems is cost. In order to compete with present fossil-fuel power systems, he says, \u201cit has got to be cheap to build, cheap to maintain, last a long time with minimal maintenance, and store enormous amounts of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n And so the new liquid batteries that Sadoway and his team, including graduate student David Bradwell, are designing use low-cost, abundant materials. The basic principle is to place three layers of liquid inside a container: Two different metal alloys, and one layer of a salt. The three materials are chosen so that they have different densities that allow them to separate naturally into three distinct layers, with the salt in the middle separating the two metal layers \u2014like novelty drinks with different layers.<\/p>\n The energy is stored in the liquid metals that want to react with one another but can do so only by transferring ions \u2014 electrically charged atoms of one of the metals \u2014 across the electrolyte, which results in the flow of electric current out of the battery. When the battery is being charged, some ions migrate through the insulating salt layer to collect at one of the terminals. Then, when the power is being drained from the battery, those ions migrate back through the salt and collect at the opposite terminal.<\/p>\n The whole device is kept at a high temperature, around 700 degrees Celsius, so that the layers remain molten. In the small devices being tested in the lab, maintaining this temperature requires an outside heater, but Sadoway says that in the full-scale version, the electrical current being pumped into, or out of, the battery will be sufficient to maintain that temperature without any outside heat source.<\/p>\n While some previous battery technologies have used one liquid-metal component, this is the first design for an all-liquid battery system, Sadoway says. \u201cSolid components in batteries are speed bumps. When you want ultra-high current, you don\u2019t want any solids.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspiration from aluminum<\/strong><\/p>\n The initial inspiration for the idea came from thinking about a very different technology, Sadoway says: one of the biggest users of electrical energy, aluminum smelting plants. Sadoway realized that this was one of the few existing examples of a system that could sustain extremely high levels of electrical current over a sustained period of years at a time. \u201cIt\u2019s an electrochemical process that runs at high temperatures, and at a current of hundreds of thousands of amps,\u201d he says. In a sense, the new concept is like an aluminum plant running in reverse, producing power instead of consuming it.<\/p>\n Chung says that from the point of view of a venture capitalist, the research is particularly intriguing for several reasons. Not only does it offer the potential to significantly lower the cost and increase cycle life [the number of times it can be charged and discharged] of large-scale electricity storage, but it also suggests that the risk typically associated with an early stage research project may be lower because the system draws on decades of experience in the design and operation of aluminum production facilities. \u201cThat gives us added confidence that some of the targets around cost, scalability and safety have merit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The team is now testing a number of different variations of the exact composition of the materials in the three layers, and of the design of the overall device. Sadoway says that thanks to initial funding through the Deshpande Center and the Chesonis Family Foundation, he and his team were able to develop the concept to the point of demonstrating a proof-of-principle at the laboratory scale. That, in turn, made it possible to get the large grants to develop the technology further.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an example of work that sprang from basic science, was developed to a pilot scale, and now is being scaled up to have a real transformational impact in the world,\u201d says Ernest Moniz, director of the MIT Energy Initiative.<\/p>\n The laboratory tests have provided \u201csome measure of confidence,\u201d Sadoway says. But many more tests will be needed\u00a0 to \u201cdemonstrate that the idea is scalable to industrial size, at competitive cost.\u201d But while he is very confident that it will all work, there are a lot of unknowns, he says, including how to design and build the necessary containers, electrical control systems, and connections.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about batteries of a size never seen before,\u201d he says. And the system they develop has to include everything, including control systems and charger electronics on an unprecedented scale.<\/p>\n For Sadoway, the project is worth pursuing despite its daunting challenges, because the potential impact is so great. \u201cI\u2019m not doing this because I want another journal publication,\u201d Sadoway says. \u201cIt\u2019s about making a difference \u2026 It\u2019s an opportunity to invent our way out of the energy problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Proactively fabricate one-to-one materials via effective e-business. Completely synergize scalable e-commerce rather than high standards in e-services. 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