Exploration of Biomass-Derived Activated Carbons for Use in Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nThe research team did not exactly determine that shrimp shells are the best bio-based material for flow batteries. What they did was compare shrimp shells to pinewood, in order to develop a method for determining the performance of a wide variety of bio-based materials and develop a general set of design principles.<\/p>\n
Got all that? Good! Shrimp could still come out on top, but shrimp shells are just one of many bio-based sources that could be used to produce the activated carbon used in flow batteries.<\/p>\n
The bio-based approach is relatively new, so before anybody skips to the front of the line, there needs to be \u201ca systematic approach to advancing biomass-based functional materials for use in energy applications,\u201d as the research team explains.<\/p>\n
If you know your atoms, you know what the team means when they conclude that \u201celectrochemically accessible surface area, rather than the heteroatom composition\u201d is a more effective representative of the material\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
Spoiler alert: surface area is a big deal in energy storage performance.<\/p>\n
Why Shrimp Shells & Energy Storage Go Together Like Rice & Beans<\/p>\n
The big question is why shrimp shells for energy storage and the answer is chitin. Pronounced KY-tin, chitin is found in the\u00a0exoskeletons, beaks, scales, and other hard parts of insects and aquatic creatures, as well as the cell walls of fungi, with shrimp and crab being the most common sources.<\/p>\n
Chitin is already commonly used for edible film and other food products. It also pops up in\u00a0biomedical and pharmaceutical applications.<\/p>\n
As a large-scale byproduct of the food processing industry,\u00a0chitin is cheap, abundant, and available\u00a0practically all over the world. In other words, perfect for a world in search of low cost, sustainable energy storage.<\/p>\n
Chitin has been a wallflower in the cleantech field, but lately, it has been emerging as\u00a0a sustainable alternative\u00a0to\u00a0petrochemicals, and there have been hints that it could be used to make\u00a0solar cells.<\/p>\n
About That Flow Battery\u2026
\nSo, flow batteries. For those of you new to the topic, flow technology has been around for a while, but it has gained new significance in the age of decarbonization because it can provide for large scale, long-duration energy storage at a relatively low cost.<\/p>\n
Lithium-ion batteries are still the gold standard for energy storage, but they only last for a few hours. In order to integrate more wind and solar into the grid, you need energy storage technology that costs less and is more flexible and resilient and is capable of handling grid-scale operations.<\/p>\n
Flow batteries\u00a0fit the bill. The basic idea is that two specialized liquids can\u00a0generate an electrical current\u00a0through a chemical reaction when they flow adjacent to each other. Typically they are separated by a thin membrane, though\u00a0researchers have experimented\u00a0with formulations that do not require one.<\/p>\n
Membrane or not, the two liquids can be stored indefinitely in their own tanks, of practically any size. Aside from providing for large-scale storage, the setup does not lose capacity over extended downtime, as is the case with conventional batteries.<\/p>\n
The US Department of Energy is all overflow batteries as\u00a0a sustainable replacement\u00a0for centralized, fossil fuel power plants. The technology is part of the agency\u2019s broader push for\u00a0large scale, long-duration\u00a0energy storage.<\/p>\n
Energy Storage, Now With Vanadium (Not Vibranium)
\nAs you may surmise, flow batteries involve two key challenges. One is how to ramp up the efficiency of the chemical reaction between the two liquids while keeping costs down. That\u2019s where the new chitin research comes in (for those of you keeping score at home, the research team includes scientists from both\u00a0MIT\u00a0and\u00a0Tufts).<\/p>\n
The other challenge is to formulate the optimal liquids for enhancing the reaction. The chitin research team settled on the all-vanadium redox flow battery formulation.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s vanadium, not vibranium. Both are metals, but only one actually exists outside of\u00a0the Marvel Universe.<\/p>\n
Our friends over at the Energy Department are quite interested in the\u00a0all-vanadium formulation. Back in 2012, the agency discussed the pros and cons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are many kinds of [Redox Flow Battery] chemistries, including iron\/chromium, zinc\/bromide, and vanadium,\u201d the Energy Department explained. \u201cUnlike other RFBs, vanadium redox flow batteries (VRBs) use only one element (vanadium) in both tanks, exploiting vanadium\u2019s ability to exist in several states.\u201d<\/p>\n
The one-element solution enables VRBs to avoid cross-contamination issues, which is a significant problem for other chemistries.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s all smooth sailing for VRBs, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cSulfuric acid solutions, the electrolyte used in current VRBs, can only hold a certain number of vanadium ions before they become oversaturated, and they only allow the battery to work effectively in a small temperature window,\u201d said the Energy Department.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe low energy densities and small operating temperature window, along with high capital cost, make it difficult for the current VRBs to meet the performance and economic requirements for broad market penetration,\u201d the Energy Department summed it up.<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t stop New York City from\u00a0dabbling in the technology\u00a0back in 2014, in a project featuring vanadium technology developed by the company\u00a0CellCube.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the\u00a0Pacific Northwest National Laboratory\u00a0has been among those on the prowl for\u00a0improvements to the technology, and the lab has come up with new energy storage chemistries that help keep costs down while addressing the energy density and temperature issues.<\/p>\n
Last year the Energy Department surveyed emerging grid-scale energy storage options and noted that\u00a0redox flow batteries\u00a0\u201cappear to be well-positioned\u201d due to the rapid pace of improvement in the technology.<\/p>\n
As one indicator of stepped-up activity in the vanadium flow battery field, earlier this year\u00a0the US company Avalon\u00a0 joined with\u00a0redT Energy\u00a0of the UK to form\u00a0Invinity Energy Systems, which bills itself as \u201cthe world\u2019s leading vanadium flow battery company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Game on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Low cost, large-scale energy storage is the key to accelerating the renewable energy revolution, and now shrimp have been enlisted in the cause. The aim is to push down the cost of flow batteries by using bio-based materials such as shrimp shells. That would help ramp up the transition out of fossil fuels and into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838,14924,16733],"supplier":[3791,11236],"class_list":["post-76904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-chitin","tag-energystorage","supplier-pacific-northwest-national-laboratory","supplier-u-s-department-of-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76904"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=76904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}