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

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

#81

Post by jwilk »

fernly wrote: post #79
hedora wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the modern sense of the word, this is not a battery. It is a device that cracks water into hydrogen, which can then be fed into a fuel cell. Presumably, it consumes distilled water, which is why it is targeting utility scale storage and not home installations. The work sounds interesting, but the article is painfully written. Lead acid batteries produce hydrogen too. I think the insight is that this can’t produce…

> ...not a battery. The paper, linked below (thanks xelxebar) would beg to differ, it says > we report a rechargeable manganese–hydrogen battery, where the cathode is cycled between soluble Mn2+ and solid MnO2 with a two-electron reaction, and the anode is cycled between H2 gas and H2O through well-known catalytic reactions of hydrogen evolution and oxidation. They give an equation for the cell operation as, Mn2+ + 2…

HN formatting capabilities are not great, but you can use Unicode sub-/superscripts:

Mn₂⁺ + 2H₂O ⇌ MnO₂ + 2H⁺ + H₂

(Shameless plug: I generated the above with https://github.com/jwilk/chemiscripts .)

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

#82

Post by picsao »

zaarn wrote: post #55
gsich wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I doubt you can remove your pants faster than a lithium cell going skywards, especially since you'll be experience some quite decent panic at your pants being literally on fire.

Levi's proudly present the smoke jumper pants. Protecting your Future Family with patented CTE Technology. (Controlled Trouser Explosion) Save your last pair of marbles.

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

#83

Post by taneq »

simonh wrote: post #50
vvanders wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, doesn't hydrogen have a history of leaking through most materials due to its small atomic size?

Yes, but if you’re only storing it <24h to smooth out your daily power generation curve that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It’s only really an issue if you’re storing it for weeks or more.

You're always storing some hydrogen even if the actual atoms are swapped out.

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

#84

Post by simonh »

taneq wrote: post #83
simonh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but if you’re only storing it <24h to smooth out your daily power generation curve that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It’s only really an issue if you’re storing it for weeks or more.

You're always storing some hydrogen even if the actual atoms are swapped out.

Of course, but for short term storage the percentage loss should be small relative to other losses in the system.

Lets say on each storage and recovery cycle over 24h I'm losing 10% of the stored energy from various losses each cycle, including 1% of the stored energy from Hydrogen loss. No big deal. Even though I'm losing 1% to hydrogen loss every 24h cycle, it's small relative to other losses per cycle. After many cycles it would still be a small fraction of overall losses.

Conversely if my cycle time is 10 days for one storage and recovery cycle, at 1% hydrogen loss per 24h all of a sudden I'm now losing more from Hydrogen loss than all other losses combined. That's really bad.

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

#85

Post by leibnizwasright »

programbreeding wrote: post #75
leibnizwasright wrote: post #74

Even though this uses Hydrogen, which means small quantity of water, water still a finite resource, it becomes costly every year, specially the one that's drinkable. This seems like a double sword, solving one side, while it makes other worse.

Does this require potable water though?

It does not say if requires potable water or how much of it would be necessary for big batteries. But I imagine potable water would serve for optimal reactions.

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

#86

Post by 88e282102ae2e5b »

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…

I dunno...academic funding is dysfunctional and this kind of hyperoptimistic prediction can help you get your next grant.
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