WELLINGTON, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- A New Zealand research aims to increase performance while reducing the size and the overall cost of producing redox-flow batteries, an environmentally friendly and safer alternative to lithium-ion batteries.
Redox-flow batteries are used for grid storage, but they are big, usually the size of a shipping container, slow and expensive. Renewable energy solutions could change the way solar and wind are stored.
With decreasing costs of renewable energies, there are global economic drivers to store these energies within countries with large amounts of solar and wind, according to the new research by the University of Canterbury (UC) PhD candidate Sophie McArdle on Thursday.
McArdle's research identifies what factors in the battery's electrode can be altered to improve battery performance.
"Reactions take place in the electrode which dictates the power output of the battery," McArdle said, adding that she is looking at ways to speed up reactions to improve performance which translates into reducing the size of the electrode therefore reducing the battery size and cost.
McArdle said she has been exploring what the industry is looking for in an electrode, what their current problems are and if there is feasible demand for putting money into creating electrode material as well as finding out how the industry tests new electrode materials which will help inform the final stages of her research.
"The success of redox-flow batteries will mean cheaper energy, energy security, and provide alternatives for off-grid applications not only by nations, but also smaller groups who can buy the systems and install them to store their own energy," said Professor Aaron Marshall of UC Department of Chemical and Process Engineering.
Marshall is also the principal investigator of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, a collaboration between five universities and two government Research Institutes.
McArdle's research is funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Smart Idea Grant and the MacDiarmid Institute's Commercialization Seed Grant. ■
