A team of inter-institutional battery sleuths has identified the cause of deterioration in a promising kind of water-based energy storage. The breakthrough could be substantial for renewable energy use, they said in a news release. 

The experts — from South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and the University of Texas at Austin — are working with iron-chromium redox flow batteries. It's a pack type that offers enormous capacity while being "explosion-proof," according to the release. 

The enhanced safety comes from using water as a key component instead of volatile chemicals.

"This work demonstrates the potential to develop high-performance, long-lasting flow batteries using cost-effective iron-chromium electrolytes. Such technology is especially promising for countries with abundant renewable resources and large land areas, like China and European nations, seeking scalable energy storage solutions," UNIST professor Hyun-Wook Lee said.

Flow batteries work differently from standard lithium-ion packs. They use pipes, pumps, and tanks to move and store negative and positive electrolytes, called the anolyte and catholyte. These substances are sent through an electrochemical cell, which is separated by a membrane. The system converts chemical energy into electricity, according to a summary published by ScienceDirect. 

A big perk with this type of pack is that the charge-discharge rate and storage capacity can be adjusted separately by changing the tank and reactor sizes, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology added. 

Removing nagging degradation and capacity decline problems is a vital next step. The team found an ion bonding exchange involving hexacyanochromate was the problem. The long-syllabled compound improves charging speed, but a side reaction during cycling replaces cyanide ions with hydroxide ions.

While the scenario is heavy on labspeak, the experts said the bottom line is that it "destabilizes the electrolyte structure, leading to rapid capacity loss," per the release. 

As a solution, the team balanced the ratio of cyanide and hydroxide ions in the electrolyte, which solved the instability issues. The battery tested well for 250 cycles. 

The water-based iron-chromium unit is touted by the researchers as an alternative to more expensive redox battery types that are closer to commercialization. 

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A team in China is working on a version that tested well with high efficiency after 850 cycles. A researcher at Montréal's Concordia University is also developing a water-based redox pack. 

The international research group specifically mentioned storing solar and wind energy in the release. Reliable batteries are crucial to saving renewable energy for later use. The cleaner sources accounted for 15% of global electricity generation last year, according to Canary Media.

That's important, as the power is made without heat-trapping air pollution. The renewables are also the cheapest and fastest energy projects to develop in the United States, Reuters reported. 

Those are clear advantages over dirty fuels that contribute to our planet's overheating, which is linked by NASA to extreme weather that's endangering lives all over the world. Stateside, the severe storms are impacting insurance prices and coverage options, as well. Some places are becoming uninsurable. 

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On the redox flow front, the international team sees the battery type as "revolutionizing energy storage by integrating sustainability with cutting-edge innovation," according to the study abstract. 

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