A new discovery from the Chinese Academy of Sciences could reshape how we store energy at large scale, offering a meaningful boost to renewable power.
The team's research focuses on aqueous organic flow batteries, which use water and organic molecules instead of the heavy metals found in traditional lithium-ion systems. These batteries are considered a safer, more sustainable option for storing solar and wind power at a grid-level, but they've long struggled with low energy density and short lifespans.
That's where the recent breakthrough comes in. Researchers have developed a new organic compound that can store four electrons at once, a finding that could effectively double the energy these batteries can hold at the molecular level.
As they explained in a summary published by Tech Xplore, lab tests found that batteries using the material reached nearly 60 watt-hours per liter, roughly twice what this kind of technology typically delivers. The new compound also reportedly improved the battery's durability. After more than 5,000 charge and discharge cycles, the improved battery design held onto nearly all of its capacity.
Many of today's most common batteries start to degrade after just a few hundred to about 2,000 charge cycles. That makes the longer lifespan of flow batteries especially promising, potentially reducing the need for replacements and lowering costs over time — particularly for large-scale systems such as home solar storage or city power grids.
The development is promising, but for now remains under research at the academy's Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. That unit is also using this higher-energy-density approach to build aqueous batteries for cars and other electric vehicles, which otherwise rely on lithium-ion systems today.
Rongke Power, a subsidiary of Dalian founded in 2008, has also emerged as a leader with its own flow battery technology. Rongke has since developed some of the world's largest power storage projects, and with a capacity as great as 175 megawatts, these sites are already playing a key role in stabilizing city grids while integrating renewable energy sources.
In the U.S., flow batteries are generating a buzz of their own. In 2022, iron flow battery company ESS and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District inked a deal to build 200 MW of storage capacity to help serve the Californian capital's decarbonization goals. As that project is in the works, other efforts are moving ahead as well.
ESS is also working with Native American-owned developer Indian Energy to test iron flow batteries at a military microgrid in California in a project backed by the Department of Defense and the state's energy commission. Elsewhere, Lockheed Martin recently deployed its first GridStar Flow battery at Fort Carson, a 1 MW water-based system designed to help the U.S. Army cut costs and keep operations running during outages.
If progress keeps up, this kind of next-gen storage could soon move from the lab to the grid. That shift would make it easier to ditch fossil fuels for good — and keep the lights on while we do it.
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