One of the great challenges facing the sustainable society is energy storage. We may one day have sufficient capacity from solar and wind energy, but renewable energy can be more efficiently fed into the electricity grid if there is a way to store it on a large scale and enable smooth production variations.
This week, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) announced a possible solution for both clean hydrogen production and large-scale energy storage. It involves a modification of one of the liquids in the tanks of the so-called redox flow battery.
We spoke to Hubert Girault, professor of analytical and physical electrochemistry at EPFL and the man behind the new development. Girault is also involved with the Swiss H2Valais, a technology company working on a hydrogen infrastructure for mobility in Switzerland.
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To start with, what is a redox flow battery?
Redox flow batteries consist of two tanks separated by an electrochemical cell. Two highly conductive electrolyte fluids – one on the positive side, one on the negative side – circulate through the tanks and past the cell to initiate a chemical reaction in which electrons are exchanged. The negolyte and posolyte solutions are separated by a membrane. These batteries store energy in an electrochemical form.
How do they differ from the common lithium-ion batteries?
The lithium ion battery also...
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