
New organic battery can operate for decades - virtualthings
https://differentimpulse.com/organic-battery-can-operate-decades/
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pjc50
Actual paper:
[https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351(18)30291-5](https://www.cell.com/joule/abstract/S2542-4351\(18\)30291-5)

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yetihehe
Missing from article:

> The molecule is also highly soluble, meaning it can store more energy in a
> smaller space. It operates in a weak alkaline electrolyte, reducing the cost
> of the battery by allowing the use of inexpensive containment materials and
> an inexpensive polymer membrane to separate the positive and negative
> terminals.

How much power does it output - it's a new electrolyte for a flow battery, so
this means for large systems measured in kW and hundreds of kWh storage.

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al_ramich
Interesting comparison against electric car battery benchmarks where 15% for
150,000km seems to be achievable (if on average 15k is done annually that
would be approx 1.5% capacity loss compared to 3% for the new organic
battery). [https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110149_tesla-model-
s-b...](https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110149_tesla-model-s-battery-
life-what-the-data-show-so-far)

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vardump
I wonder whether designer proteins could one day serve as a battery.

Imagine a species of bacteria producing a self-organizing battery.

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dvfjsdhgfv
> I wonder whether designer proteins could one day serve as a battery.

It occured to the Wachowskis too.

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TeMPOraL
You mean, s/ protein//? :).

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lerie
How much power does it actually output?

~~~
speps
Link to actual paper:
[https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30291-5](https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351\(18\)30291-5)

Supplemental material:
[https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.joule.2018.07.005/attachm...](https://www.cell.com/cms/10.1016/j.joule.2018.07.005/attachment/f6455733-1cb2-49a7-a6c4-2e16ef7bbea1/mmc1.pdf)

Figure S17 of the supplement seems to be what you're after.

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philipkglass
If you pay attention to only one battery chemistry paper per month, this would
be my pick for the month of July. Harvard has been producing some very
interesting work on flow battery chemistry using organic molecules over the
past few years.

January 2014: A metal-free organic–inorganic aqueous flow battery

[https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12909](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12909)

They were using a quinone plus an acidic Br2/Br- redox couple. It was
interesting because it relied entirely on abundant elements, but acidic
Br2/Br- is very corrosive. And somewhat hazardous. It seems like this
chemistry would demand rather expensive supporting materials/systems.

September 2015: Alkaline quinone flow battery

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6255/1529](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/349/6255/1529)

Uses alkaline pH and ferricyanide/ferrocyanide instead of acidic pH and
Br2/Br-. You still wouldn't want to wash your hands in it, but it's
significantly less hazardous than the previous chemistry. It's also compatible
with more materials and less expensive materials. But the energy density,
already modest, fell again with this easier-to-handle composition.

Later papers: a bunch of different variations on this theme. They're looking
for higher energy density and better capacity retention, while avoiding
corrosion/hazard issues. Higher energy density means smaller tanks and
(usually) smaller membrane systems for a given energy storage or power output
target. You don't want to lose all savings from inexpensive active molecules
to a requirement for huge storage tanks and membranes.

This paper: claims a bunch of desirable properties. High efficiency. Better
energy density than the original alkaline formulation. Long cycle life. Long
_calendar_ life -- meaning, the ability to sit unused for a long period and
not lose too much capacity. (Several prior variants on this organic flow
battery theme used persistent-radical chemistry for improved energy density,
but even persistent radicals do not persist very well over a period of years.)
This latest effort also retains the benefit that motivates this entire series:
all required chemicals involve only very abundant elements.

For those unfamiliar with flow batteries, the most common chemistry is based
on acidic solutions of vanadium. These flow batteries are fairly good on
lifetime, efficiency, and energy density. But they do not store a lot of
energy per unit mass of vanadium, and vanadium is fairly expensive. It hit a
price of over $28/kg (as oxide) earlier this year. It does not seem practical
to scale up vanadium flow battery manufacturing to tens or hundreds of GWh of
storage capacity per year, because even if mass production made non-
electrolyte components much cheaper, the vanadium alone would be too
expensive.

That's why a lot of R&D is going into looking for alternative non-vanadium
chemistries for flow batteries. Some of them seem like a lateral move from a
bulk storage perspective. Cerium? Yeah, good luck scaling _that_ to 100
GWh/year either. Others, based on abundant metals or on non-metallic organic
molecules (like this effort), might have very good prospects for bulk
stationary storage if all the kinks can be worked out.

This paper shows a full-cell flow battery concept with quite a few kinks
straightened, which is why it's my pick for top battery paper in July.

