Unexpected element improves flow battery capacity, claim US researchers - pv magazine International

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Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have demonstrated the use of sugar water to improve the performance of flow batteries for grid-scale energy storage.

July 12, 2023 Ryan Kennedy

From pv magazine USA

Flow batteries, two-chambered devices holding liquid electrolyte, are actively developed across the world as grid-scale energy storage solutions for renewable energy systems.

PNNL has made a significant breakthrough by developing an electrolyte additive called β-cyclodextrin. This additive, derived from a simple sugar used in food and pharmacology, has shown remarkable results in flow batteries. The PNNL team achieved a 60% increase in peak power for a research flow battery.

β-cyclodextrin speeds up the electrochemical reaction responsible for storing and releasing energy in flow batteries. Unlike previous methods, the sugar acts as a dissolved solution rather than a solid applied to a surface, marking a first for flow batteries. The findings, published in Joule, demonstrate the sugar additive's ability to accept positively charged protons, contributing to the balanced movement of negative electrons during battery discharge.

“This is a brand new approach to developing flow battery electrolyte,” said Wei Wang, s PNNL battery researcher. “We showed that you can use a totally different type of catalyst designed to accelerate the energy conversion. And further, because it is dissolved in the liquid electrolyte it eliminates the possibility of a solid dislodging and fouling the system.”