Redox flow batteries are very energy efficient, and theoretically quite easy to scale up. But at the moment, they’re too expensive to use widely.
Now a team of UK chemists have figured out a way to make redox flow batteries with much cheaper materials – in fact, one of their materials is air.
Their prototype battery is 50-100 times cheaper than current commercial batteries in terms of energy stored – but still much more expensive in terms of power output. Nevertheless, the researchers believe that more research will allow them to bring this cost down too.
Redox flow batteries have two electrolytes separated by a porous membrane. Power is created as the electrolytes flow through the membrane.
The researchers’ innovation, published in Nature Communications, is to use a gas electrolyte and a liquid electrolyte – and a second…