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posted by janrinok on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:14PM   Printer-friendly

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-05-compound-commonly-candles-grid-scale-energy.html

A compound used widely in candles offers promise for a much more modern energy challenge—storing massive amounts of energy to be fed into the electric grid as the need arises.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have shown that low-cost organic compounds hold promise for storing grid energy. Common fluorenone, a bright yellow powder, was at first a reluctant participant, but with enough chemical persuasion has proven to be a potent partner for energy storage in flow battery systems, large systems that store energy for the grid.

Development of such storage is critical. When the grid goes offline due to severe weather, for instance, the large batteries under development would kick in, boosting grid resilience and minimizing disruption. The batteries can also be used to store renewable energy from wind and solar, for use when the winds are quiet or the sun's not shining.

"Flow battery technology is a critical part of the Department of Energy's goal to reduce the cost of grid energy storage over the next decade," said Imre Gyuk, director of Energy Storage at DOE's Office of Electricity. "Progress has been rapid, and the cost has come down significantly, but further research is needed to make grid-scale energy storage widely available."

Scientists are making tremendous strides toward creating better batteries—storing more energy at lower cost and lasting longer than ever before. The results touch many aspects of our lives, translating to a more resilient , longer-lasting laptop batteries, more electric vehicles, and greater use of renewable energy from blowing wind, shining sun, or .

For grid-scale batteries, identifying the right materials and combining them to create a new recipe for energy storage is a critical step in the world's ability to harness and store renewable energy. The most widely used grid-scale batteries use lithium-ion technology, but those are difficult to customize moment to moment in ways most useful to the grid, and there are safety concerns. Redox flow batteries are a growing alternative; however, most use vanadium, which is expensive, not easily available, and prone to price fluctuations. Those traits pose barriers to widespread grid-scale energy storage.

Journal Reference:
Ruozhu Feng, Xin Zhang, Vijayakumar Murugesan, et al. Reversible ketone hydrogenation and dehydrogenation for aqueous organic redox flow batteries [$], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abd9795)


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  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:19PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:19PM (#1138570)

    Did you kill him and eat him?

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:06PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:06PM (#1138614)
      Buzzard is quite the character, but he does not deserve your ... enthusiasm.
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    • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:46PM

      by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:46PM (#1138756)

      They found him dead from choking on a dildo.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 26 2021, @01:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 26 2021, @01:14AM (#1138786)

      Just the opposite, he's gone fishing (again). Didn't say if he was a catch and release guy, but I'll guess he eats some of the catch.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:27PM (3 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @02:27PM (#1138576)

    I found the wikipedia article quite interesting:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage [wikipedia.org]

    But I couldn't find a good comparison of
    * storage efficiency (i.e. energy out/energy in)
    * size (mass/volume per energy)
    * cost
    * lifetime

    We have a small substation at the end of our garden, with a couple of big transformers. I wonder what would be the cost of adding an extra battery (or whatever) for load levelling?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:03PM (1 child)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:03PM (#1138588)

    This articles stretches for many paragraphs and keeps repeating the same content-free rah-rah over and over. Really frustrating... It makes PopSci articles look positively dense with information in contrast.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:03PM (#1138641)

      It is really misleading to call it an "article." A much better term is "press release."

  • (Score: 2) by Snospar on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:05PM (5 children)

    by Snospar (5366) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:05PM (#1138590)

    the sun's not shining

    What? We'll need these things in a few billion years then?

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    • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:57PM (4 children)

      by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 25 2021, @03:57PM (#1138609)

      Meanwhile on the other side of the world they need them tonight...

      [pedant]The sun might still be shining but for solar energy production there is an implied requirement that it be shining here, and it clearly doesn't shine all the time for all values of "here".[/pedant]

      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:55PM

        by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:55PM (#1138633)

        Well doh...that's why they are spending so much time and money on developing batteries.

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      • (Score: 2) by Snospar on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:57PM (2 children)

        by Snospar (5366) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:57PM (#1138635)

        That doesn't make sense, the sun is still shining as normal at it's usual location. Just because your location is now in shadow hasn't changed that. The wording of the article is wrong.

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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:27PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @11:27PM (#1138751)

          Your theory is interesting but needs more work to explain the fact of why the sun is darker at night.

        • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 26 2021, @08:09AM

          by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday May 26 2021, @08:09AM (#1138868)

          In my local frame of reference the sun rotates around me about once a day.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:50PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @05:50PM (#1138659)

    I can leave my laptop charger cord at home. Need to improve the battery 3x for that to happen.

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:44PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 25 2021, @07:44PM (#1138683)
      That's a recipe for "laptop dying just hours before I get home".
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