Energy storage has become a big problem as solar and wind power have sparked a price revolution in recent years. People need a large, cheap and durable battery that, after sunset, provides power after the wind stops. Researchers at Harvard University have used an organic ' longevity ' molecule to make liquid-flow batteries that store energy to power the entire city, a paper published in the Joule magazine said recently.
The battery not only solves the cost problem of all-vanadium liquid-flow battery, but also breaks through the life bottleneck of the organic liquid-flow battery. The so-called liquid-flow batteries, like lithium batteries in mobile phones, consist of electrodes that convert the energy stored in the electrolyte into electricity, and the electrolyte that transmits the charge from one electrode to another.
However, the traditional battery will be the electrode pair and electrolyte package together, the liquid-flow battery will be separated by the positive and negative electrodes, the electrolyte cycle. These electrolytes are stored in an external container of any size and pumped into the electrodes when used.
Therefore, the charge capacity of the liquid-flow battery can be increased to the million watt level. All-vanadium liquid-flow batteries are now the mainstream of a liquid-flow battery that is safer, cheaper and more durable than lithium-ion batteries.
However, as the electrolyte of vanadium metal particles is more expensive, chemists have been trying to use a class of organic compounds called ' quinone ' as a substitute. The use of such organic materials to produce electrolytes, the cost is only one-third of all vanadium liquid-flow batteries, but they are repeated charge and discharge after the loss quickly, can not meet the requirements of industry.
This is the main reason why organic liquid-flow batteries cannot be commercialized. So Michael Aziz, a material scientist at Harvard University, and his team are Michael Aziz to improve the longevity of quinone. They found that two carboxylic acid groups were added to the original quinone and were more easily soluble in alkaline solutions.
In this way, they can use a solution with lower acid and alkali values, lower chemical strength, and less electrolyte loss. The annual loss rate of the liquid-flow battery with the new quinone drops to about 3%, and the former quinone-flow battery loses so much one day. The Aziz team gave the new quinone an individual named ' Methuselah ' molecule.
Methuselah is a long-lived patriarch referred to in the Old Testament of the Bible, living 969 years old.
The Aziz team has not studied the production cost of ' Methuselah ' quinone, and if it is similar to the traditional quinone cost, then the organic liquid-flow battery will meet the requirements of commercialization. ' They designed this kind of quinone very well, ' Utah State State University chemist Liu Tianji, who is also studying liquid-flow batteries.
However, he pointed out that the liquid-flow battery must use two different electrolytes, the Aziz team only solves one of the electrolyte loss problem, another electrolyte loss problem is still to be overcome.
