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Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

news.stanford.edu

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Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#21

Post by jlebrech »

Animats wrote: post #17
josecyc wrote: post #11

I don't know about this. Countless times researchers discover the next battery so much better than the current state-of-the-art being deployed, only to find out they just can't scale it. New battery technology is really hard.

Yes. Surface chemistry ("nanotechnology") seems to attract this sort of hype. "The prototype manganese-hydrogen battery, reported April 30 in Nature Energy, stands just three inches tall and generates a mere 20 milliwatt hours of electricity ... The researchers are confident they can scale up this table-top technology... " That is a really puny battery. It's 1/10th the energy capacity of a typical watch/hearing aid b…

it's might be a really crappy battery, but having it use something that's virtually limitless and nearly free is a good way to go.

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#22

Post by konschubert »

> To mimic how a wind or solar source might feed power into the battery, the researchers attached a power source to the prototype.

So, they charged the battery? Why doesn't the article just say that? Does the intended audience of the article not know what "charging a battery" is?

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#23

Post by endymi0n »

ByThyGrace wrote: post #20
raverbashing wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder why they didn't think of this before or what challenges have they overcome this time.

It sounds too good to be true, right? Can't blame yourself for being skeptical so soon after the announcement.

Sometimes you just have to do something simple that just nobody else happened to have thought of before. Graphene and scotch tape comes to my mind...

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#24

Post by ianai »

jlebrech wrote: post #21
Animats wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Surface chemistry ("nanotechnology") seems to attract this sort of hype. "The prototype manganese-hydrogen battery, reported April 30 in Nature Energy, stands just three inches tall and generates a mere 20 milliwatt hours of electricity ... The researchers are confident they can scale up this table-top technology... " That is a really puny battery. It's 1/10th the energy capacity of a typical watch/hearing aid b…

it's might be a really crappy battery, but having it use something that's virtually limitless and nearly free is a good way to go.

It’s only nearly free if it’s salt water.

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#25

Post by Multicomp »

gsich wrote: post #7
freeone3000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We currently put high-temperature, charged lithium in our pants pockets. The technology this is replacing uses lead and sulfuric acid. Hydrogen is probably fine.

In case of problems you can remove your pants very quickly.

Something something new meaning to the safety dance

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#26

Post by jclulow »

gsich wrote: post #7
freeone3000 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We currently put high-temperature, charged lithium in our pants pockets. The technology this is replacing uses lead and sulfuric acid. Hydrogen is probably fine.

In case of problems you can remove your pants very quickly.

Have you seen how fast a lithium battery fire gets going?

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#27

Post by timb07 »

svantana wrote: post #14

>Cui estimated that, given the water-based battery’s expected lifespan, it would cost a penny to store enough electricity to power a 100-watt lightbulb for twelve hours. Oh dear, I hate university news "journalism" with a passion. For the life of me I cannot understand why they feel the need to dumb down parts of the content while other parts remain decidedly technical. Is it to have something that laymen can quote?…

"Excess electrons bubbled off as hydrogen gas, thus storing that energy for future use."

Just wow.

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#28

Post by fooker »

ianai wrote: post #24
jlebrech wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's might be a really crappy battery, but having it use something that's virtually limitless and nearly free is a good way to go.

It’s only nearly free if it’s salt water.

We do have a virtually inexhaustible source of salt water..

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#29

Post by fernly »

Could someone ELI5 how the recharge cycle works? On charging it evolves H2 gas; how does that get put back on recharge?

This is very much NOT explained by the paragraph,

> The researchers did this by re-attaching their power source to the depleted prototype, this time with the goal of inducing the manganese dioxide particles clinging to the electrode to combine with water, replenishing the manganese sulfate salt. Once this salt was restored, incoming electrons became surplus, and excess power could bubble off as hydrogen gas, in a process that can be repeated again and again and again.

Re: Researchers have developed a water-based battery to store solar and wind energy

#30

Post by pdkl95 »

dbasedweeb wrote: post #9
kbenson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, any vehicles you park in your garage or in your driveway probably have a lot of stored potential energy that can be released catastrophically under the wrong circumstances too. (this goes for whether it's ICE or electric). The fact that we generally consider those safe to sleep next to is a testament to safety engineering (and possibly a bit of self delusion).

The wrong circumstances required to catastrophically release all of that energy in an ICE car is pretty extreme, requiring the fuel to atomize and thoroughly mix with air. Otherwise you have a fire, not a bomb. Hydrogen by contrast just needs a spark and then it comes to strongly resemble a bomb. If your hydrogen is under pressure, then simple containment failure can be the “spark” required. Plus, gasoline is easy to…

> If your hydrogen is under pressure, then simple containment failure can be the “spark” required.

If the pressure is high enough[1], you don't even need to ignite the hydrogen; pressurized gas storage experiencing catastrophic failure is a bomb. An explosion is rapidly expanding gas. Normally a chemical chain reaction[2] is used to generate that gas, but rupturing high pressure gas storage has very similar effects.

Storing a lot of energy in a small space (high energy density) always includes the risk of that energy being released.

> We shouldn’t short sell just how tricky hydrogen can be.

Working with hydrogen directly is really problematic. However, an easy way to solves most of those problems is stabilizing the hydrogen by attaching it to a chain of carbon atoms.

[1] The storage pressure probably is high enough or the design would have used much cheaper low pressure parts.

[2] e.g. the common high explosives that store lots of single-bonded nitrogen as a solid and rapidly chain react into triple-bonded N2 gas and a lot of energy

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