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Learn more - CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN JOIN IEEESIGN IN Close Access Thousands of Articles -- Completely Free Create an account and get exclusive content and features: Save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders -- all free! For full access and benefits, join IEEE as a paying member. CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN EnergyTopicNewsType Smaller, Cheaper Flow Batteries Throw Out Decades-Old Designs A new approach holds promise for storing intermittent renewable energy at scale Prachi Patel 26 Jan 2023 3 min read person wearing a white lab coat and black rubber glove holding opaque tube with wire in middle Liu's lab in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) developed a more compact flow-battery-cell configuration that reduces the size of the cell by 75 percent, and correspondingly reduces the size and cost of the entire flow battery. Georgia Institute of Technology grid storagepower densityflow batteries By replacing the traditionally flat electrodes and membranes in a flow battery cell with wire electrodes and tubular membranes, researchers have shrunk the battery cell size by 75 percent. This reduction in footprint and complexity could cut the cost of flow batteries, an important front-runner to store renewable energy on the grid. Solar and wind power are growing faster than ever, according to the International Energy Agency. Making these intermittent energy sources a regular part of the grid without causing instabilities will require batteries to store energy on a large scale. Flow batteries are a promising technology for that. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which store energy in solid electrodes, flow batteries store chemical energy in liquid electrolytes that sit in tanks. This stored charge is converted into an electric current (and vice versa) in a power module, which is a stack of electrochemical cells. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Each cell has a positive and negative electrode, separated by a membrane that allows certain ions to move through when the battery is charging and discharging. To operate the battery, two electrolytes are pumped through either side of the reactor cell. Flow batteries can, in theory, be easily scaled up to megawatt-hours by increasing the size of the tanks. They can also have longer lifetimes and be safer than lithium ion. They remain costly, though, with a capital cost of around US $800 per kilowatt-hour, more than twice that of lithium-ion batteries. "But they can be much cheaper, and our work accelerates this process," says Nian Liu, a chemical and biomolecular engineering professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Liu and colleagues focused on redesigning the power module, which makes up 40 percent of the cost of a flow battery. Today's cells are still based on a decades-old configuration of flat end plates, electrodes, and membranes. They also have several inactive parts, such as frames, rubber gaskets, bipolar plates, and flow distributors, which occupy most of the cell volume, bringing down the cell's power density. "They also make it expensive," Liu says. "And they are not necessary." The team's new cell configuration, borrowed from the chemical-separation industry, eliminates these components. In their design, a 0.65-millimeter-wide tube, made of the ion-transporting material Nafion, acts as the membrane. The researchers thread a carbon-fiber cathode through the tube. Then they place four of these tubes inside a bigger, 2 mm plastic tube, and push a zinc wire through to serve as the anode. During operation, the team pumps one electrolyte through the outer plastic tube, and the other electrolyte through the four smaller tubes inside. The distance between the electrodes and membranes goes down from the few millimeters common in a planar cell to less than a millimeter in this design, boosting power density. "We make the thing very compact," Liu says. "So we use less material to achieve the same performance. Less material means it is cheaper." A proof-of-concept test using zinc-iodine chemistry--one of the common ones used in flow-battery technology--showed that the battery had a charge densities of about 1,322 watts per liter of electrolyte and a discharge density of about 306 W/L. For a conventional planar cell, those numbers are under 60 W/L and 45 W/L, respectively. The battery lasted through over 2,500 charge cycles and is compatible with other typical flow-battery chemistries, the researchers reported on 3 January in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Liu estimates that the tubular design should cut the cost of flow-battery power modules by roughly half. Plus, all the components in the cell are off the shelf, and scaling up the reactor cell design should be easy, since it is based on a commonly used design in the chemical industry. He expects that the overall cost of flow batteries should go down in coming years. There is a lot of ongoing research on improving electrolytes already, he says, "and also people are starting to think about recycling electrolytes. If this is demonstrated, then the electrolyte cost can be significantly reduced." The team will soon sign a research contract with a flow-battery company, which will sponsor further research on scaling up and benchmarking the tubular flow cell, and analyzing the design at a larger system level. From Your Site Articles * Iron-Chromium Flow Battery Aims to Replace Gas Plants > * New Sulfur Flow Battery for Affordable Long-Term Grid Storage > Related Articles Around the Web * New generation of 'flow batteries' could eventually sustain a grid ... > * New type of 'flow battery' can store 10 times the energy of the next ... > grid storagepower densityflow batteries Prachi Patel Prachi Patel is a freelance journalist based in Pittsburgh. She writes about energy, biotechnology, materials science, nanotechnology, and computing. The Conversation (0) Tesla Inc. vehicles in a parking lot after arriving at a port in Yokohama, Japan, on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2022. TransportationTopicEnergyTypeAnalysis Why EVs Aren't a Climate Change Panacea 6h 9 min read Three men stand in a robotics laboratory around a small white upper body humanoid robot on a pedestal RoboticsTopicTypeNewsHumanoid Robots Here's How Apptronik Is Making Their Humanoid Robot 8h 4 min read Artificial IntelligenceTopicMagazineTypeThe Big Picture Curing the AI Way 27 Jan 2023 3 min read Related Stories EnergyTopicTypeTransportationNews EVs Are Essential Grid-Scale Storage EnergyTopicNewsType Aluminum Sulfur--Is This How the Future Spells Lithium Ion? EnergyTopicNewsType Generating Electricity From Heat With No Moving Parts EnergyTopicMagazineTypeFeatureSpecial ReportsJanuary 2023 Telecommunications 13 Intriguing Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2023 Arctic Internet, AI vs. the EU, the Hot Air Balloon Defense, and more Dina Genkina 30 Dec 2022 6 min read An illustration of grouped icons. Greg Mably A Sea-Monster-Proof Internet An illustration of an igloo with colored curved lines above it. All illustrations: Greg Mably The initial segment of what will be the first underwater fiber-optic link to skirt the North Pole, connecting Japan and Europe, will light up in early 2023. This stretch, called Iris, will link Iceland to Ireland. In subsequent years, the Far North Fiber project will lay down a cable through the Northwest Passage, connecting Iceland to Greenland, then Canada, Alaska, and finally Japan. Far North Fiber will help increase the geographic diversity of the world's fiber-optic network; currently, submarine cables are laid along a few well-trodden routes, leaving the network vulnerable to local hazards, like ship anchors, earthquakes, or fiber-eating sea monsters. Balloons vs. Hypersonic Missiles An illustration of the hot-air balloon with a star and stripe on it. In a bid for the most MacGyver-worthy defense strategy, the Pentagon has planned a sevenfold increase in spending on hot-air balloons in 2023. These high-flying, low-tech aircraft are already in use for surveillance, hovering at 18,000 to 27,000 meters to track drug runners. The hope is, these floating leviathans will collaborate with satellites to detect hypersonic missiles, like those being developed by Russia and China. As a bonus, the tech onboard the balloons runs on solar power. AI Regulations Are Coming An illustration of 3 colored lines with a magnifying glass in the center. Regulation is set to ramp up on artificial intelligence uses online, as the European Parliament and Council's Digital Services Act went into effect at the end of 2022. The bill requires the largest platforms to implement anti-disinformation measures and protect against discriminatory targeted advertising. Perhaps most important, it requires transparency in the algorithms used to provide product and content recommendations. This is likely a precursor to the EU's larger AI Act, which is currently grinding through the legislative gears. Revenge of the Geosynchronous Satellites! An illustration of 3 satellites lined up. Compared to Starlink's sky-cluttering swarms of tiny satellites, San Francisco-based Astranis's plans may seem old school. It aims to launch a humdrum, lone geostationary satellite. But this satellite is the first of a new breed, dubbed microGEO. It's about one-twentieth the size of the minibus-scale geostationary satellites already in orbit, allowing for cheap and quick deployment. This first microGEO will launch in early 2023, and start providing service to Alaska, tripling the state's satellite bandwidth while cutting its cost. That same year, the company plans to launch four more microGEOs. One will provide Internet to rural Peru, two will service airplanes and cruise liners, and the final satellite's use is yet to be disclosed. Hurricane-Model Overhaul An illustration of a series of lines with colored bars in the shape of a tornado. U.S. hurricane tracking and prediction models will get a much needed upgrade ahead of the 2023 season. The U.S. model has been lagging in accuracy behind Europe's version, a problem that first became evident during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Now, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has put a new set of supercomputers into operation to power the next generation of modeling. The improvements will include higher resolution, more realistic physics to represent clouds and precipitation, a larger number of simulations, and more effective use of observational data. China's Big Hydro Plans An illustration of star with water inside with 4 stars on the right. China is in the midst of a gigantic buildup of hydro-energy capabilities. The world's largest pumped-energy-storage station--a technique that stores energy by pumping it uphill to a reservoir--is set to complete phase two of its construction in 2023. The station, called Fengning and located about 200 kilometers north of Beijing, will store up to 40 gigawatt-hours of energy, and help keep the grid on clean energy when the wind isn't blowing or the sun's not shining. Separately, the Lianghekou hydropower station in Tibet is also set to come fully online in 2023, and is expected to generate a whopping 11 terawatt-hours of electricity annually (roughly the energy consumption of Lithuania). These massive construction projects are intended to help China meet its goal of going carbon neutral by 2060. Prize Fight for Rain-Forest Tech An illustration of a ribbon with icons of trees inside. In the Spring of 2023, Singapore will welcome 15 teams to the jungle for the semifinals of the XPrize Rainforest competition. The semifinalists, hailing from all over the world, will show off their biodiversity-testing tech in the hopes of making the cut to the finals, set for 2024. Judges will be looking for "a process for improving autonomous operations, new detection methodologies, and methods for rapid data integration that provide unprecedented levels of detail in real time." The competition kicked off in 2019, and XPrize's net investment is US $10 million. XPrize is hoping that the incentive and competitive spirit will help save the rain forests. Modular Nuclear Power is Nucleating An illustration of a truck with an atom on the flatbed. Korean manufacturer Doosan is set to start producing components of what could be the world's first modular nuclear power plant, in late 2023. The components are for startup NuScale, whose design promises to drastically reduce cost and installation time. Unlike today's power plants, which are constructed completely on-site, these reactors can be mass-produced in a factory and shipped to power stations worldwide. Each houses between 4 and 12 self-contained reactor modules depending on local needs. The first power plant using NuScale's technology is set to start generating electricity in 2029 at the Idaho National Laboratory, as part of the Carbon Free Power Project. Out With Red Tape, In With the Fiber An illustration of mountains with alternating arrows underneath. Germany aims to triple the amount of fiber cable installed by the end of 2025, in an effort called Gigabitstrategie. One of the strategies the German government will use to accomplish this ambitious goal is to clear some of the red tape around fiber projects by the end of 2022. It plans to centralize the project-approval process, currently seen as a municipality-dependent bureaucratic nightmare, clearing the way for a massive ramp-up in construction in early 2023. The government also plans to use the innovative microtrenching technique to lay down fiber in narrow 5-centimeter-wide channels dug by the side of the road without interrupting traffic. United States' Wind on the Wire An illustration of 3 windmills. The largest renewable-energy infrastructure project in U.S. history-- an $8 billion wind farm and transmission line--is set to begin construction in 2023. San Francisco-based Pattern Energy took over the projects, called SunZia Wind and SunZia Transmission, from Southwestern Power Group in July 2022. The wind part of the project plans a total of 3,000 megawatts from wind farms it will build in three counties in New Mexico. An 885-kilometer bidirectional high-voltage direct-current transmission line will run from New Mexico and south-central Arizona. The transmission line will sidestep the growing difficulties of connecting renewable-energy sources to the power grid. NASCAR May Lean Electric A According to documents leaked earlier this year, auto-racing giant NASCAR plans to debut a prototype electric vehicle (EV) ahead of its season-opening race in February 2023. This prototype, the documents suggest, will then be used in an EV racing series later in the year. The series would consist of two races lasting 30 minutes apiece, with no battery swaps or charging allowed. This information, although unconfirmed, would be in line with NASCAR's previously stated plans to test out opportunities in the EV space. Amidst much pressure to move toward electric, NASCAR maintains that entertainment value for its fans is the top priority. One charger to rule them all [svg] The European Union has adopted a directive that mandates a range of devices charge using USB-C ports. Apple, with its unique lightning port, will be no exception: iPhones, iPads, and other small devices will be forced to migrate to USB-C by 2024. Laptops will have to follow sometime in 2026. This law is the first of its kind anywhere in the world. It's meant to improve convenience for the consumer, as well as cut down on electronics waste generated by different chargers, which is currently responsible for an estimated 11,000 tonnes per year. Several U.S. senators have pushed for similar legislation, so far to no avail. The French Nuke Up An illustration of nuclear reactor towers with the eiffel tower overlaying one. Over a decade behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, France's next-generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville is finally expected to get fueled up in early 2024. The plant will be only the world's fourth EPR reactor--a third-generation pressurized water design that's meant to be safer and more efficient than its predecessors. The project has been plagued by safety concerns, engineering missteps, and most recently pandemic supply chain issues. But now, Electricite de France (EDF) says they are in the final stretch. The plant could not come too soon to help decrease Europe's reliance on Russian oil and gas. [svg] Top Tech 2023 Top Tech 2023: A Special Report Preview exciting technical developments for the coming year. Can This Company Dominate Green Hydrogen? Fortescue will need more electricity-generating capacity than France. An Airship Resurgence Pathfinder 1 could herald a new era for zeppelins A New Way to Speed Up Computing Blue microLEDs bring optical fiber to the processor. The Personal-Use eVTOL Is (Almost) Here Opener's BlackFly is a pulp-fiction fever dream with wings. Baidu Will Make an Autonomous EV Its partnership with Geely aims at full self-driving mode. China Builds New Breeder Reactors The power plants could also make weapons-grade plutonium. Economics Drives a Ray-Gun Resurgence Lasers should be cheap enough to use against drones. A Cryptocurrency for the Masses or a Universal ID? What Worldcoin's killer app will be is not yet clear. IBM's Quantum Leap The company's Condor chip will boast more than 1,000 qubits. Arthritis Gets a Jolt Vagus-nerve stimulation promises to help treat autoimmune disorders. Smartphones Become Satphones New satellites can connect directly to your phone. Exascale Comes to Europe The E.U.'s first exascale supercomputer will be built in Germany. The Short List A dozen more tech milestones to watch for in 2023. From Your Site Articles * 10 Tantalizing Tech Milestones to Look for in 2020 > * 10 Exciting Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2021 > * 12 Exciting Engineering Milestones to Look for in 2022 > Related Articles Around the Web * Milestones:List of Milestones - Engineering and Technology History ... > Keep Reading |Show less