
Organic mega flow battery promises breakthrough for renewable energy - ZoeZoeBee
https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2014/01/organic-mega-flow-battery-promises-breakthrough-for-renewable-energy
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philipkglass
I initially upvoted this but after clicking through realized it was about
older research from 2014.

Here is the new-and-improved version from the same research group that was
published just a little while ago:

[https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2017/02/long-lasting-
flow-...](https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2017/02/long-lasting-flow-battery-
could-run-for-more-than-decade-with-minimum-upkeep)
[http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00019](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00019)

Most battery research stories aren't significant. Either they are very minor
improvements on past technologies, they require excessively rare elements,
they require nanostructures with no clear path to industrial scale
manufacturing, or they have poor lifetime. (Those objections weed out about
90% of battery research papers.) This Harvard group is one of the few
publishing research that passes all those "meh" filters and actually interests
me.

Another actually interesting battery chemistry:

[http://www.pnas.org/content/114/5/834.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/114/5/834.abstract)

"High Coulombic efficiency aluminum-ion battery using an AlCl3-urea ionic
liquid analog electrolyte"

Ok lifetime, good efficiency, _super_ abundant and cheap materials. This would
be great for large scale grid tied storage if they can boost the lifetime a
bit more.

