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posted by janrinok on Monday July 18 2022, @06:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the voltaic-vinaigrette dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The liquid metal batteries invented by Donald Sadoway consist of three liquid layers of different densities, which naturally separate in the same way as oil and vinegar do in a salad dressing. The middle layer of molten liquid salt is surrounded by the top and bottom layers made from molten metals.

For his work on liquid metal batteries that could enable the long-term storage of renewable energy, MIT Professor Donald Sadoway has won the 2022 European Inventor Award, in the category for Non-European Patent Office Countries.

“By enabling the large-scale storage of renewable energy, Donald Sadoway’s invention is a huge step towards the deployment of carbon-free electricity generation,” says António Campinos, President of the European Patent Office. “He has spent his career studying electrochemistry and has transformed this expertise into an invention that represents a huge step forward in the transition to green energy.”

[...] Sadoway’s liquid metal batteries consist of three liquid layers of different densities, which naturally separate in the same way as oil and vinegar do in a salad dressing. The top and bottom layers are made from molten metals, with a middle layer of molten liquid salt.

To keep the metals liquid, the batteries need to operate at extremely high temperatures, so Sadoway designed a system that is self-heating and insulated, requiring no external heating or cooling. They have a lifespan of more than 20 years, can maintain 99 percent of their capacity over 5,000 charging cycles, and have no combustible materials, meaning there is no fire risk.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @07:16AM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @07:16AM (#1261519)

    The story doesn't tell me much.

    I am interested in the reactions, as we are already using lithium and sodium/sulphur in batteries...and that's two of the most reactive metals in existence.

    Maybe he's bringing chlorine or fluorine into the fray?

    Seems to me we are getting damn close to theoretical limit without using "tankable" electrode material.

    My money is still on storing energy in liquid fuel systems. Methanol is just the beginning.

    Don't wanna diss it, but I sure don't understand what is such an improvement yet.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Monday July 18 2022, @09:10AM (2 children)

      by pTamok (3042) on Monday July 18 2022, @09:10AM (#1261527)

      Reading through the press release, you eventually find a link to Ambri [ambri.com].

      The Ambri site mentions Calcium and Antimony, with a bit more detail here: https://ambri.com/technology/ [ambri.com] . The electrolyte is 'based on' Calcium Chloride. Operating temperature appears to be 500 centigrade. It appears rather less susceptible to combustion than sodium sulfur cells. Self heating on charge and discharge, but longer term static storage will require heaters to keep the cells at operating temperature.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by dx3bydt3 on Monday July 18 2022, @10:44AM (1 child)

        by dx3bydt3 (82) on Monday July 18 2022, @10:44AM (#1261530)

        I went digging for these same details, I should've come to the comments first!
        One other important figure that they should've included in the article, is that the battery unit the company is developing houses 1000kWH in a 10 foot shipping container. Should these prove to be viable and cost effective, they seem to me to be a natural pairing with wind turbines. Where I live the provincial grid is at about 40% renewable generation, mostly wind power. The utility faces challenges when there is lots of wind in off demand hours, and vice-versa. Currently they use coal plants to buffer the variability. Batteries like these would be a more rapid and cleaner way of achieving the same result, and would facilitate adding even more wind generation capacity.

        • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday July 18 2022, @12:18PM

          by pTamok (3042) on Monday July 18 2022, @12:18PM (#1261544)

          It occurs to me that I haven't seen any self-discharge rates mentioned. If the cell-type is used to lop the top off peak demands, it doesn't matter much, but if you are planning long-term(ish) power storage, the self-discharge rate becomes important, as does the heating requirement.
          If it really is a good possibility for bulk power storage, I'd expect refined calcium and antimony futures/option pricing to have gone up.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @02:23PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18 2022, @02:23PM (#1261557)

      I posted a MERGE to this recent video talk by Sadoway -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYuVoSqj1OE [youtube.com] It didn't make the story (but has been removed from the sub queue--go figure).

      He's an excellent and forceful lecturer and discusses the future of battery innovation -- specifically for electric cars (the talk was part of a transportation forum) but also in general.

      Plenty of electrochemistry in the lecture, it might help to answer some of your questions?

      I was able to listen at higher than 1:1 speed, like many here I don't usually like long videos--but this was an exception.

      • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday July 18 2022, @02:38PM (4 children)

        by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 18 2022, @02:38PM (#1261561) Journal

        A merge is usually a sign that you are going processing it. I thought that perhaps you had changed your mind....

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2022, @01:21AM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2022, @01:21AM (#1261685)

          > A merge is usually a sign that you are going processing it.

          I don't understand this sentence. Can you re-state it?

          Note: I didn't submit the original story ("Accepted submission by Arthur T Knackerbracket at 2022-07-15 11:10:22").
          I only submitted the MERGE, thinking that the lecture by Sadoway would make a useful addition to the original submission.

          Should I use a different word than "MERGE" if I'm trying to add additional information to an existing submission?

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday July 19 2022, @04:49AM (2 children)

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 19 2022, @04:49AM (#1261703) Journal

            A merge is something that the editors do when there are 2 related stories. When an editor decides to merge 2 stories it usually indicates that he/she is processing that story for publication, and that other editors need not bother with it. So I didn't.

            It was a misunderstanding - that is all.

            • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday July 19 2022, @05:16AM (1 child)

              by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 19 2022, @05:16AM (#1261704) Journal

              To further clarify, when a topic has been identified for a merge and an editor is processing it, the word 'Merge' is often in the title. Your submission appeared at first look as if it was being processed by an editor. There are different kinds of merges and they do not appear identical to each other.

              We haven't got time to watch videos when preparing stories. Some have used youtube links to include political electioneering or other material unrelated to the topic under discussion and unsuitable for publication. If you wish to include a video please include a reasonable description of its content.

              I realise that you were trying to be helpful - better for us if you can include a link to the submission to which you think it is related in the story summary, but that is by no means essential. Every submission gets looked at, usually by a minimum of 3 editors. Sometimes recently that has only been 2 editors because of staffing problems.

              However, it was an error on my part. I apologise. We are working at full stretch here at the moment (you may have noticed.....) and such things might happen from time to time. No harm was done as you have included the same link in the discussion so nothing has been lost.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2022, @12:21PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2022, @12:21PM (#1261722)

                Thanks for this explanation, no worries.

                I've done something like this (submit a related submission) a few times. My takeaways:
                  + include link to original sub
                  + summary of any video links
                  + for subject, I'll use keyword "RELATED" (and not "MERGE"--reserved for editors).

                > ... so nothing has been lost.
                Only a little time was "lost"--I don't look at SN constantly through the day, thus my post with the lecture/video wasn't available at the same time as the story hit the front page.

    • (Score: 2) by Samantha Wright on Monday July 18 2022, @04:33PM

      by Samantha Wright (4062) on Monday July 18 2022, @04:33PM (#1261587)

      Disregard detail; acquire salad dressing.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Monday July 18 2022, @11:54AM (2 children)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 18 2022, @11:54AM (#1261541) Homepage Journal

    At 500 degrees C, the battery fluids might not burn, but what about the stuff nearby?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday July 18 2022, @12:13PM (1 child)

      by bradley13 (3053) on Monday July 18 2022, @12:13PM (#1261542) Homepage Journal

      At 500 degrees C, the battery fluids might not burn, but what about the stuff nearby?

      If the batteries are kept in containers (as seems to be the intended use-case) that shouldn't be an issue. Unclear from the website, but it seems to me that the entire container should really be kept at 500C, rather than just the individual batteries. That would make the insulation far easier and more efficient.

      Still, I wonder: If you internally short-circuit the batteries, what will happen? There's a lot of energy stored in them that will escape and do something. Consider a rack of these batteries falling over - the internal fluids mix - and then...what?

      --
      Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Monday July 18 2022, @01:41PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday July 18 2022, @01:41PM (#1261549)

        If you internally short-circuit the batteries, what will happen?

        Not much apparently. I recall a story he told of accidentally knocking something into an open test cell at one point, causing mixing of the three layers. I think it heated up slightly before the layers re-separated.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday July 18 2022, @02:16PM (4 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Monday July 18 2022, @02:16PM (#1261554)

    I've been intrigued by these batteries for a while, and it's good to see them getting close to market.

    What make me really curious though is the small size of the individual cells. They look to be about 12"x6"x4", and It seems like energy capacity scales with the volume of metal used, and one of the big advantages this technology has is the simplicity of the cell. So I've got to wonder why they're cramming 500+ cells into a shipping container, rather than making the cells much larger and eliminating much of the per-kWh wiring and manufacturing costs.

    I wonder if they have technical difficulties with larger cells, or if it's more of a practical concern. Being almost entirely metal that size might be pushing the limits of what one person can reliably lift - which simplifies a lot of manufacturing and maintenance. And there's a voltage consideration as well - it's usually a good bet that a single cell will have an electrochemisty somewhere in the ballpark of 1 volt, so maybe they need 500+ cells just to get to a high enough voltage for grid usage without massive cables - they do say the entire 10' shipping container system operates at 550-1150V.

    Still, for serious storage it seems like there'd be real potential for hundreds of shipping-container sized cells. Which seemed to be what Sadoway was discussing early on.

    I suppose if a single 10' shipping container stores ~1MWh, that's at least a good chunk of what a lot of customers want though - and trying to sell someone on hundreds of shipping container sized cells worth of unproven battery technology is probably an uphill battle. Perhaps they're planning to aim for that once their smaller cells have established a good reputation?

    • (Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Monday July 18 2022, @04:25PM (1 child)

      by mrchew1982 (3565) on Monday July 18 2022, @04:25PM (#1261584)

      Could be a limitation on size due to surface area needed for cooling, or something to do with the ideal boundary layer size between the liquids.

      Instead of shipping containers I had envisioned huge storage tanks like used for water or crude oil, perhaps even buried for safety or insulation...if we're going to be able to use 100% renewables we need some *massive* storage capabilities.

      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 18 2022, @09:54PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday July 18 2022, @09:54PM (#1261657)

        If you're going that scale, pumped hydro is probably the way to go.

        I say shipping containers, because that's what the transportation industry is set up to handle, which means you can build cells in a factory where economies of scale can kick in.

        If you are using a 40 foot shipping container you should have at *least* 4x the 1MWh multi-cell arrangement in 10ft., or 4MWh per cell, and if you need 500+ cells to get a decent working voltage, then you're talking at least 2,000MWh as the basic capacity increment for an installation. That's more than 10% of the energy usage of San Franscisco - probably a decent capacity increment to still be useful for less dense areas as well, considering that it sounds like it works best when cycled roughly daily to stay hot enough.

        Though actually, a 40ft cell might be far too heavy for standard equipment to move - the max limit per container is ~60,000lb, and just filling it with water would be pushing 40,000lb. Metals are going to be a lot heavier: the cell density will be somewhere between calcium at 1.5x as dense as water, and antimony at 6.7x.

        It could be that a 10ft container is the largest that would still be light enough for standard equipment to move, so maybe 500MWh as the basic increment of large-cell batteries.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by anotherblackhat on Monday July 18 2022, @05:30PM (1 child)

      by anotherblackhat (4722) on Monday July 18 2022, @05:30PM (#1261596)

      It's not like a 4 liter cell is that small — though I think scaling it to 1kWh of storage (about twice it's current size / 10 times it's current volume) would be good.

      I'm an outside observer, but I believe the reason for the "small" cell size has more to do with difficulties in manufacturing the containers.
      I.e. they can't just weld together some stainless steel to make the casing.
      The cells need to be made (or at least lined) with something that can withstand temperatures of 500­°C without reacting with the chemicals in the battery and be relatively cheap — a tall order.
      Once the cell gets bigger than a human can lift you have to start building machines to make it.
      You can do that of course, but it requires a larger amount of up front capitol.

      I suppose if a single 10' shipping container stores ~1MWh, that's at least a good chunk of what a lot of customers want ...

      For batteries there are 4 main use cases I can think of;
      1. Grid scale storage
      2. Home scale storage.
      3. Cars.
      4. Mobile devices (laptops, cell phones)

      For grid scale, 1MWh in a shipping container is great.

      For the home, something that can store around 25 kilowatt hours is about right, but it needs to be a cubic meter or less.
      I can't put a shipping container in my basement, but I could put something the size of a hot water heater.
      Or I could bury something that size in my yard.

      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 18 2022, @10:17PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Monday July 18 2022, @10:17PM (#1261661)

        I think manageable weight is probably a big factor. 4 liters of water weighs 4kg, while the battery density is going to be somewhere between calcium and magnesium (1.5x to 6.7x the density of water), so probably somewhere around 16kg (36lb). I wouldn't particularly want to be the person installing those all day - I can see why one of the video clips shows of them using some sort of suspension system to move them.

        Steel can handle the temperature just fine, and if a liner is needed only the area changes, so you need less liner per kWh the bigger the cell. There might be some concerns about cell height though - pressure at the bottom is going to increase rapidly, requiring thicker walls.

        For home usage... I'm not sure you actually want something that needs to stay at 500C. That's getting into the "it has to sit completely unused for days or weeks before it cools down enough that it can be serviced" territory.

        For grid scale the capacity is a drop in the bucket - San Fransisco consumes an average of 18,000 MWh per day. If you need 100's of thousands of containers to do the job, seems like it'd be a lot more cost effective if each container were a single simple cell, instead of 500 plus wiring. Or maybe a single stack of full-footprint cells, if height and/or surface area (=max power delivery) are concerns.

        But for now at least, hardly anyone is doing genuine grid scale other than a few pumped hydro installations. It's mostly short-term load balancing and the like - so perhaps 1MWh is a good size for the current demand.

  • (Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Tuesday July 19 2022, @01:46AM

    by MIRV888 (11376) on Tuesday July 19 2022, @01:46AM (#1261686)

    If I'm understanding the concept, the liquids will slosh around and you will in all likelihood get a short. Cells or not, if you get a bunch of shorts in a base load storage facility, very bad things are going to happen.

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