Existing energy storage technology has always been due to the limitations of the material itself has been halted, which need to find another way to find a new energy storage system, but it most needs to be solved is nothing more than a basic issue: to extend life expectancy, Reduce Costs Recently, Donald Sadoway, a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT, announced at the MIT Tech Review and the EmTech China Summit held by Deeptech Deep Technologies that they are developing a liquid metal battery.
According to its introduction, at room temperature, this product life of 4 years, it can do more than 4,000 times the charge and discharge - the equivalent of a charge and discharge can be used once a day for 10 years and still retains 99% of the original capacity, Battery loss rate is very low.
Sadoway said it expects the first products to be delivered to customers by the end of 2019.
The following is a record of Donald Sadoway's speech:
What I would like to talk about is the difference between energy storage innovation and energy storage innovation in other areas. Unlike the industry practice, we do more academic things, that is, we Things that are done now may have never been done before.
Since we want to change the existing industry as a whole, it will inevitably cost a huge amount of money. Therefore, we need to start thinking about cost control at the research stage.
For modern society, power is often linked to modernization, so the power network is especially important. I can even say that the power network is the largest supply chain in the world and requires zero inventory.
(As shown in the picture above, much of the area is covered by darkness, apparently where the electricity supply is urgently needed)
However, to solve this problem, it is bound to involve the widespread application of energy storage.For example, solar energy, wind energy, renewable energy sources, they generally have the problem of intermittent supply, so if you want to play their performance better There must be a complete set of energy storage solutions.
What about the development of the existing energy storage technology?
I am afraid that the status quo is not optimistic.First, large-scale energy storage facilities are not as simple as the battery on our mobile computer, it must meet the safe and stable operation of twenty or thirty years, otherwise it is a disaster.
In addition, it must also ensure that it can be operated flexibly enough in operation, which is also the prerequisite for its stable operation, and it is also important to strictly control the production cost.
In a sentence inserted here, the battery was invented by an Italian professor named Alessandro Volta, who printed his avatar on a note of 10,000 Lira in Italy, and Prof. Alessandro Volta had a special point to note: A professor can turn his research into useful social practice.
This also greatly inspired my research on batteries, and first of all, I realized that I needed my team working together and that there was another point to take into consideration from the beginning of design to give manufacturers some ease of production Sex.
But we were also questioned in the development process, because for a large megawatt-scale power plant, a small battery seems less likely to meet their energy storage needs, let alone change the world There are indeed people in the battery industry who say we are crazy, but what I want to say is that we should not only focus on the inherent industries and existing inventions but must innovate.
So I turned my attention to the electrolytic aluminum industry, where they were usually equipped with large equipment that worked 24 hours a day, while the economies of scale brought about a reduction in the cost of obtaining 1 kg of aluminum for less than $ 1. Inspired by the fact that we are reversing the steps of electrolyzing aluminum and inventing liquid metal batteries, we can achieve large-scale and cheap electricity storage, which is why we see the problem from a different perspective.
(Liquid metal cell structure, the bottom is liquid antimony, the middle is molten salt electrolyte, the upper is liquid magnesium, molten salt in the middle of the two liquid metal)
None of my team members, experts on batteries, have ever been exposed to electrochemical research before, but they are brilliant, unbiased and fearless young talents who can make outstanding achievements .
Of course, progress is not always easy. From the very beginning, experiments always fail. But after several years of research, we have created miracles. I believe we will certainly be able to make more achievements in the next two or three decades.
Finally, let's talk about the performance of our batteries, we tested more than 1,000 batteries and their costs are very low and we have also made a lot of scientific achievements, a week ago we published an article in "Nature Energy" , Which recorded some of our progress.
It can be said that our battery is very special, it has a long cycle life, and its capacity is very stable.From this chart below can be seen, with the use of time, the entire battery loss rate is very low Even if every day for charging and discharging operation, continued use after 10 years can still ensure that it can maintain the initial capacity of 99%.
After a technical breakthrough, I and my students set up AMBRI, a company that specializes in liquid metal batteries. We got an A round of investment from Bill Gates and the product is expected to be available in two years .
Here to disclose the specific product information:
Volume of 18 cubic meters;
Storage capacity 1,000kWh, power 350kW;
Support 1,000 volts DC;
The total weight of 15 tons, a total of 67Wh per kilogram of energy storage, cheaper than lithium batteries.
At room temperature, our product has a 4-year lifespan, but it does more than 4,000 charges and discharges - the equivalent of 10 years of charge and discharge per day, and, as mentioned earlier, More than 4,000 charge and discharge still retain the original capacity of 99%.
Finally, I want to exchange my two points of thinking:
1, we have the courage to go out of the lithium battery framework, from which we can learn to invent our own energy storage system.
2. We find that outstanding young people can give us a lot of inspiration and inspire us to invent and create new things. With reason, perseverance and perseverance, we can transform the weak possibility into an irresistible breakthrough.
Reporter: Now there are some new materials, such as solid state batteries, liquid batteries and graphene as additives, how do you think about the commercial prospects of these new materials? By 2020 there will be a new material than lithium batteries Such?
Donald Sadoway: A key word is its price / performance ratio, in fact, we see that over the years, new materials are constantly emerging.Now we use the mainstream of lithium batteries, the first discovery was found by John John in 1985. Later in 1990 In the year of 2006, it used another variant of graphene, which currently performs best in price / performance.
However, the new materials you mentioned, including those we have not heard of, have finally disappeared. What is the reason? Because of the high cost and the inability to be widely used, graphene can only be produced in small quantities .
Reporter: China last year, the sales of new energy vehicles a total of more than 77 million vehicles, so the next few years out of the power battery in the secondary use or energy storage there are some suggestions?
Donald Sadoway: The most important issue in this issue is the cost issue. Our current mainstream lithium battery, in fact, the battery inside the molecule, level, the structure is too complex, can be recycled, but to extract such complex ingredients, recycling, this Recycling is not a great economic value, might as well not recycling.
Today's speech also mentions liquid metal, even saying that it can be 'immortalized' and always reusable. Why? Because it is relatively simple in structure, even if the outer shell is corroded, the liquid Metal can be relatively easily extracted, placed in another shell, it can be recycled.
Therefore, when we see that people have such an awareness of environmental protection nowadays, this is a good thing in itself. However, we must also reflect on whether we are excessively enthusiastic or sometimes overstate the concept of recycling instead of doing it Comprehensive consideration.If you want to recycle in the future, unless the battery structure is not so complicated, can be more convenient, more low cost to recycling, this problem can be solved.
Reporter: You opened a liquid metal battery company's commercialization progress is like?
Donald Sadoway: Our company was founded in 2010 and officially started operation in 2011. It's been seven years now. You might wonder why this commercialization process was so slow. Since I was a chemistry teacher at the time, Laboratory came to industrial mass production, there is a lot of content to learn, including electronic management, energy management and so on.
Also need a high degree of reliability, which means that you have to achieve the management level of 6σ, 1000000 components which only one non-compliance, such fault tolerance can be accepted, rather than the laboratory 1000 there is a non-compliance Standard on it.
It is estimated that by the end of 2019, that is, two or so years from now, the first commercial products should be delivered to customers.
Reporter: For the technology of liquid metal batteries, which of the potential customers are very interested in you, or have been exposed?
Donald Sadoway: There are quite a few customers who are asking because everyone is very interested in this but we are very cautious. We hope it will not overstate our customers' expectations but it is still very promising.
