Technology Tuesdays: Battery Advancement Charging Forward!
There’s nothing I enjoy discussing more than electrification (the good and the bad) because I believe it is the path forward to preserve our environment as well as our economy. A big component of electrification is battery storage. This is primarily due to the variable nature of renewable energy. That being said, we are used to seeing lithium-ion batteries in absolutely everything. They power our cell phones, tablets, laptops, power tools, scooters, toothbrushes, and they are increasingly powering our vehicles and used as backup power in our homes.
Lithium-ion batteries are awesome, right? The short answer is, mostly. They are ubiquitous in the market now and it is the most advanced technology we have available to date, which makes them great. However, they do have their issues. Some of those issues have to do with their performance. For example, do you use a laptop for work? If you do, you are probably like me in that my laptop docks to a workstation at my desk which also means, it is usually plugged in. When my laptop is plugged in for long periods of time, the battery has a tendency to overheat. The overheated battery can cause internal damage to electronic devices. This is a common issue with lithium-ion batteries and also occurs when they are charged too quickly.
Other issues with lithium-ion batteries include their relatively short life span. Many of them die after around 1,000 charge/discharge cycles depending on the size and application of the battery. This remains an unanswered question for electric vehicle owners. Electric vehicle owners are unable to own their vehicles for as long as they would a fuel combustion vehicle because the cost to replace the battery is often prohibitive. So, gone may be the days we are able to drive a vehicle long past the point at which you have a car payment which is a goal for many, myself included.
Among other issues, these batteries use chemicals that are flammable which causes electric vehicles to explode if impacted in certain ways. Lithium-ion batters also underperform in extreme temperatures. This may not be an issue for most people, however, a significant number of us live in climates that either exceed 122°F or plummet below 32°F which can cause performance issues for these batteries.
The primary issue with lithium-ion batteries, which was the inspiration for this article, is the material required to make them. Not only do lithium-ion batteries use toxic chemicals which cause difficulty with disposal and recycling, these batteries also require materials that give rise to environmental and ethical issues in their extraction. We are mainly talking about lithium and cobalt.
Mining lithium is resource intensive requiring a significant amount of energy and/or water to extract. Not to mention, it is not widely available. Roughly 1/3 of the world’s supply of lithium exists in just 2 countries. The other material required to make lithium-ion batteries is cobalt which is even more exclusively located than lithium. 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt is located in just one country: the Dominican Republic of Congo (DRC). This county is rife with poverty and the demand for cobalt has brought about unsafe working practices and child labor in order to meet the massive demand.
So, is this our only solution and path toward electrification and energy storage? Increasingly, it appears there is another option. One that uses far more abundant resources as its primary elements. It is called a vanadium redox flow battery and is projected to be the next major thing in energy storage. What makes the vanadium redox flow battery so special? First, it replaces the use of lithium with sodium. Sodium is abundant and significantly cheaper than lithium. Chemically similar to lithium, sodium sells for about 1/3 the cost of lithium. Additionally, breakthroughs in its development mean that vanadium redox flow battery can be recharged daily for years and do not face the limitations with charge/discharge cycles as lithium-ion batteries do. Vanadium redox flow batteries also have more capacity and do not experience performance impacts from extreme weather conditions such as lithium-ion batteries.
Vanadium redox flow battery is better than the lithium-ion battery in almost every way and companies are preparing to begin mass production of these batteries soon. Recently, developers have claimed to have made the vanadium redox flow battery so similar to the lithium-ion battery that they can be used in the same equipment. This means there will be no need for conversions or adaptive equipment.
This is an exciting time for battery storage, and we are certainly keeping a close watch on the market as this product begins to appear on shelves and in products we use daily.
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Sources:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01735-z
http://www.flashchargebatteries.com/problem/
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/03/1114964240/new-battery-technology-china-vanadium
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/business/china-sodium-batteries.html
https://energystorage.org/why-energy-storage/technologies/vanadium-redox-vrb-flow-batteries/