To power entire communities with clean energy, such as solar and wind power, a reliable backup storage system is needed to provide energy when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t out.
One possibility is to use any excess solar- and wind-based energy to charge solutions of chemicals that can subsequently be stored for use when sunshine and wind are scarce. During these down times, chemical solutions of opposite charge can be pumped across solid electrodes, thus creating an electron exchange that provides power to the electrical grid.
The key to this technology, called a redox flow battery, is finding chemicals that can not only “carry” sufficient charge, but also be stored without degrading for long periods, thereby maximizing power generation and minimizing the costs of replenishing the system.
Researchers at the University of Rochester and University at Buffalo believe they have found a promising compound that could transform the energy storage landscape.
In a paper published in Chemical Science, an open access journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the researchers describe modifying a metal-oxide cluster, which has promising electroactive properties, so that it is nearly twice as effective as the unmodified cluster for electrochemical energy storage in a redox flow battery.
The research was led by the lab of Ellen Matson, PhD, University of Rochester assistant professor of chemistry. Matson’s team partnered with Timothy Cook, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, to develop and study the cluster.
“Energy storage applications with polyoxometalates are pretty rare in the literature. There are maybe one or two examples prior to ours, and they didn’t really maximize the potential of these systems,” says first author Lauren VanGelder, a third-year PhD student in Matson’s lab and a UB graduate who received her BS in chemistry and biomedical sciences.
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