If you've ever drove north on San Francisco from Los Angeles to Highway 5, you'll most likely encounter a large wind farm on the way. This is California's most iconic The Alta Wind Energy Center. Before 2013, it was also the largest wind power plant in the United States.
In fact, if you choose different routes, then there are still opportunities to meet several unique wind power plants along the way to the north. California is one of the earliest large-scale areas for wind power and solar power generation in the United States, and it is also clean in the United States. Energy development pioneer. 2025 years ago, California is committed to achieving 50% of electricity from sustainable energy.
Renewable clean energy, represented by wind energy and solar energy, is the best way to alleviate the shortage of global resources, climate change and environmental pollution. In the ointment, solar and wind energy are all intermittent energy, and one cloud may affect solar panels. Stability of power generation. At the same time, due to the lack of efficient large-scale energy storage equipment, the waste of wind energy and solar energy worldwide is extremely serious. Therefore, the research of electrochemical energy storage devices such as batteries is extremely critical.
On April 30th, an academic article published in Nature's Energy under the title of “Nature” attracted the attention of the global energy community. A new research result from Stanford University brings new energy to large-scale energy storage. Hope. The material of this school is a new type of water battery—manganese hydrogen battery (Mn-H)—invented by the famous Chinese professor Cui Wei Experimental Group. It can be recycled more than 10,000 times! Its potential for low cost, long life, and high energy density. Performance will be expected to bring about tremendous changes in the field of large-scale energy storage.
Nobel Prize winners who have always encouraged the development of new energy technologies, former US Department of Energy Minister, now Stanford University professor Steven Chu, are looking forward to the further improvement of the above research results. He said, 'Although accurate materials and designs are still Further research and development is needed, but this prototype demonstrates a new scientific and engineering approach to obtaining inexpensive, durable large-scale energy storage batteries.
On the next day (May 1st) of the paper's publication, the American Chinese television reporter and the American Chinese Network reporter visited the Cui Wei laboratory of Stanford University's Materials Department for the first time to learn more about this new type of battery.
Cui Wei Laboratory Postdoctoral Researcher Chen Wei Shows Battery Prototype
Image from Stanford official website
The prototype's new 3-nanometer-sized manganese-manganese-hydrogen battery currently produces only about 20 milliwatt-hours (mWh) of power, which is about the same as the energy level of the LED flash light hung on the key ring. Despite this, the experimenters believe, After further improvement, this original technology will be expected to realize the industrialization of large-scale energy storage in the near future. The head of this research group, Professor Cui Wei from Stanford University's Department of Materials, stated: 'We believe this prototype technology will meet the requirements of the Department of Energy. The practical goal of large-scale energy storage. '
According to the current U.S. Department of Energy’s recommendation, batteries that can be used for large-scale energy storage must meet the following conditions: The energy that can be charged and discharged in one hour is not less than 20 kilowatts, and at least 5 thousand charge and discharge can be supported, and the service life is Not less than 10 years. From a practical point of view, the price of a battery that satisfies the above conditions should not be higher than 2,000 U.S. dollars, that is, the price for storing energy per kilowatt-hour is less than 100 U.S. dollars.
In order to achieve this goal, scientists from different fields have made various attempts. In the field of large-scale energy storage, many battery systems have emerged, including lithium-ion batteries, lead-acid batteries, flow batteries, and sodium sulfur. Batteries, liquid metal batteries, etc. However, these batteries do not have low energy density, short cycle life, high cost, harsh working conditions, and a long way to go in practical applications.
Energy Density
Lead Acid Battery: 30-50 Wh/kg, Fluid Battery: <50 Wh/l.
Cycle life
Lead-acid batteries: <500次, 钠硫电池: <1500次.
Package cost
Lithium-ion battery: ~250$/kWh; lead-acid battery: ~170$/kWh; fluid battery: ~450$/kWh
Operating temperature
Sodium-sulfur battery: 300-350 °C; liquid metal battery: >450 °C.
Comparison of the main limitations of several battery systems
In view of this, Professor Cui Wei of the Department of Materials at Stanford University proposed a new concept three years ago. Manganese and hydrogen were used as positive and negative electrodes, and water was used as electrolyte. Theoretically, it should be possible to realize large-scale energy storage in energy. Density, service life and price and many other strict requirements.
Professor Cui Wei Interviewed by American Chinese Network
American Chinese official Jun Jun photo
Cui Wei (left) and students in the laboratory
Cui Wei is one of the world leaders in nanomaterials and is currently a professor at Stanford University. He is also a professor at Stanford SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and a senior researcher at Precourt Energy Institute.
Cui Hao is also a member of Stanford Bio-X and the Stanford University Institute of Neuroscience. Under the guidance of Professor Cui Wei, Chen Wei, a postdoctoral researcher at Chinese Stanford University, has conducted more than three years of exploration and experimental testing. 'We need to repeatedly debug the hydrogen battery device and its parameters in order to continuously optimize the experimental results', said Chen Wei. 'The relevant experiment has been done no less than 1,000 times', and finally an optimized device and test conditions have been obtained. Excellent battery performance. This means that the newly developed battery can still have no significant decay after repeated charge and discharge of 10,000 times. This is equivalent to an order of magnitude improvement in battery life based on the existing major energy storage methods.
Electrochemical performance of Mn-H battery
Cui Wei's research group published articles on Nature-Energy
Chen Wei Interviewed by American Chinese Network
American Chinese official Jun Jun photo
'Technology is still in the experimental stage'. Professor Cui Wei told the American Chinese Network that his research group is further optimizing experimental prototypes. These optimizations mainly focus on two aspects. One is to increase the energy density of the battery and the other is to reduce the cost of the battery. For example, in the earlier experiments using platinum as a catalyst, we needed to find cheaper alternatives. After optimization, the research group will continue to conduct relevant pilot and large-scale experiments. In Stanford University, which has always attached importance to the integration of production, education and research. With encouragement, Professor Cui Wei has obtained relevant patents and has set up a company to prepare for industrialization.
The global large-scale energy storage market has a scale of trillions of U.S. dollars. According to Cui Wei, once the Mn-H battery can be industrialized and applied as expected, it will make the clean energy network more stable and bring about social and economic development. Important promotion. Large-scale clean energy power plants, as well as residential areas and household electricity, may benefit from this. For example, according to current experimental data, it is estimated that the cost of storing a single 100-watt light bulb for 12 hours of continuous use of electricity is only 1 cent.
On the other hand, the industrialization and application of Mn-H batteries will also make the popularization of electric vehicles further possible. Mn-H batteries can stabilize the power grid to provide the possibility to achieve this goal.