A Low-Tech Approach To Energy Storage: Molten Metals

>The researchers began churning out new chemistry options, using such metals as tin, lithium and calcium. Today, the new and improved molten metal batteries produced at Ambri's factory operate at a cool 900 degrees Fahrenheit.

>"Well, there's a secret sauce on the specific materials that we're using," Bradwell says. "It's not magnesium and antimony, but it's similar type materials."

>The liquid metal storage cells look like stainless steel shoe boxes. They're filled with raw materials and vacuum sealed.

>"The heart of the manufacturing operation is this unit here. This is our cell assembly system. It's a very straightforward process," Bradwell says. "Low-cost capital equipment, high-capacity throughput to allow us to scale to manufacturing with relatively low capital investments."

>Five investors including Bill Gates and the giant French energy company Total have pumped $50 million into Ambri, attracted by the company's low-tech approach.

>"Some of the basic skills that are required here are really built on welding steel together," says Ambri CEO Phil Giudice. "It's really quite straightforward, no moving parts, no separators between the layers. It's a very elegant, simple technology."

>"The electrochemistry of the battery involves three liquid components," Bradwell says as he explains the inner workings of the molten metal battery.

>"We have a liquid metal as the bottom positive electrode," he says, "which pools on the bottom of one of those stainless steel cans; a layer of molten salt, which floats on top of that; and then a third liquid layer — a second metal — which floats on top of the salt, allowing the battery to establish a potential."

>That energy potential produces a flow of electrons — electricity. It's elementary, elegant and simple. But it helps if you have a Ph.D. in electrochemistry.

>"On discharge, the top electrode metal dissolves into the electrolyte as an ion, shedding electrons which goes through an external circuit delivering power," Bradwell says.

>Reverse the flow and the electrons return to the positive electrode, charging the battery. The molten metals have different densities and don't mix. Like oil and water, they separate into layers: no pumps, no moving parts.

>And the system essentially runs itself. At the factory Ambri has built a beta prototype battery: 432 storage cells strung together and placed into a small insulated shipping container. A commercial version — the same size — could supply a day's worth of electricity to 30 average Massachusetts homes. To scale up: Add more containers.

>Inside the box it's 900 degrees but outside it's cool to the touch. The system is about 80 percent efficient, but Giudice says very little energy is wasted.

>"The inefficiency, that 20 percent of inefficiency, is actually given off as heat," Giudice says, "and that heat is held within the insulated box that holds the cells and that's sufficient to keep it at operating temperature, and you just charge and discharge to keep it at that state."

Solving A Molten Metal Melt Down

>Bradwell says Ambri was gearing up for commercial production two years ago when the company suffered a meltdown.

>"The one component that we had some challenges developing was the high-temperature seals," he says.

>The seals — separating the positive and negative electrodes in the high-temperature cells — kept melting.

>"There didn't exist a technology in the marketplace that we could just apply to our cells," Bradwell says.

>So, in late 2015, just as Ambri was gearing up for field testing and commercial production, the company had to lay off a quarter of its staff.

>That's a frightening and all too familiar danger for startups, says Galen Nelson, senior director of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

>"It's called 'The Commercialization Valley of Death,' " Nelson says. "It's this leap that companies need to make between testing and proving out a prototype in a lab and actually deploying it in an operational or real world environment."

>The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center provided comfort in the form of a grant to help Ambri transit the "Valley of Death" and survive thanks to newly designed seals.

>"So it is a great material, it is readily available, and we're not fully public with it," Bradwell says.

>"They do last a long, long time in operation," Giudice says as he stands in front of the battery prototype.

>He says it's been charging and discharging flawlessly since last fall.

>"Tens of thousands of cycles is we project out for, so it's really quite remarkable compared to every other storage technology that's out there."

>Ambri's molten metal technology is at the cutting edge of the emerging energy storage industry. The company plans to begin commercial production within two years. There are competing battery designs, but the revolution in the way we use, generate and transmit electricity has already begun.

Oh, look, something interesting

>>126159
>Oh, look, something interesting
Maybe this thread belongs in /sci/?

>>126172
Maybe you belong in /sci/

>>126173
Maybe we all belong in /sci/.

>>126180
Everyone should lurk /sci/, few should post

>>126128
432 storage cells just to power 30 homes, seems like hydrocarbons will have a future for a while

Pretty cool thanks for posting

>>126193

You don't seem to have grasped the concept of what a battery is.

>>126193
>it won't work because I say so

>>126190

the people who post on sci regularly are easily the bottom 5% of 4chan.

>>126422
Why do you say that?

>>126441

they're the kind of stupid person who watches a PBS nova special on black holes and seriously imagines that because he knows about black holes that he is smart. a fat, crude plumber who only watches sport is smarter than him.

>>126198
>>126326
I'm not saying that it doesn't have a future, just that said future is quite a ways off

>>126445
I've met people like that, they're pretty obnoxious.

>>126445
What kind of retarded logic is that?

By understanding even a simple thing like black holes, you create mental connections about the inner workings of quantum physics. Tell me a sports fan that you know that analyzes the physics of American football when he's watching it.

>>126422
Lol no.
/his/ is much much much worse.

We don't need new energy cell tech, we need infrastructure for more sustainable energy

>>126483
>Tell me a sports fan that you know that analyzes the physics of American football when he's watching it.
Dunno about the physics but I know people analyse the geometry.

>>126483
>Tell me a sports fan that you know that analyzes

The apt analogy is an armchair quarterback.

Not every sports fan is an armchair quarterback, or at least not obnoxiously so -- just the annoying/asshole ones. The nice ones ask honest questions of more experienced people, such as "Why on earth would a pro offensive coordinator call *that* play?", and then listen to the explanation and decide from there whether they sympathize or not.

Anyway, it's the same with these armchair scientists like you see irl or on 4chan. Basically, knowing a little bit runs the danger of making you think you know enough to not be humble in your ignorance. All scientists who are not at the forefront of a specific field every day are humble about every other field, even ones closely related, unless dealing with someone ridiculously ignorant.

>>126541
>we need infrastructure for more sustainable energy

What in the fuck do you think these cells are for? Golf carts? You're on the internet -- look up how a power grid works.

>>126602
Would this have the potential to reduce generation requirements at power plants as the current requirements across sectors could be stored and used until a recharge is needed instead of powering everything all the time?

>>126541

no

that's really not what we need

we need energy cell tech

not sustainable energy.

>>126659
not sure it's a dichotomy.

energy storage technology just potentates the benefit of switching to renewable energy technology since most renewable resources tend to be more abundant but less reliable

>>126128
>another weapon for the war on coal.

>>126541
Okay.

Pretend every building produced it's own electricity. Take all the goddamn metal that we use to pipe arsenic and CO2 spreading coal derived electicity to every town of 500 population and make nice, reliable domestically produced things from it. Wouldn't that be nice?

That's what we need, solar on every roof and geothermal under every foundation.

>>126707
Read:
>>126718

>>126718
I'd rather have a nuclear battery

>>126752
As long as the nuclear waste is stored in your house.

>>126755
I see you don't know much on the subject

So what you're saying is that for a few hundred thousand dollars I can have a battery strong enough to power my home for 24hrs for only the cost of a 10 by 10 by 10 foot brick that's a few tons in weight and requires continuous use of electricity to keep it at 900 degrees Fahrenheit?

It sounds okay but I'd rather use a gas generator to get electricity or burn things to keep warm and cook things in an emergency situation. If I was in a situation where those were not feasible options I unlikely would be able to utilize that giant unmovable battery.