The ability to store energy promises to revolutionize the way we generate, transmit and use electricity — making renewable sources such as wind and solar cheaper and more dependable.
Massachusetts is one of just three states requiring electric utilities to build battery facilities in the future.
A company in Marlborough believes it literally has the next hot technology in energy storage: molten metals.
About 10 years ago, MIT materials chemistry professor Donald Sadoway began wondering what it would take to make a better battery. One that could store huge amounts of energy, charge and discharge rapidly and operate reliably for decades. Of course it would have to be safe: non-toxic and not explode. And, oh yeah, inexpensive to make.
Sadoway stared at the periodic table of elements and had a “eureka” moment — build batteries out of liquid metals.
Fast forward a decade to a factory in Marlborough.
“This is where we have all the processes that we need to manufacture and test the cells we’ll be producing for prototype and commercial systems,” says AmbriChief Technology Officer David Bradwell.
Ambri is the company that Bradwell and Sadoway co-founded. It’s based on the idea of using liquid or molten metals to generate electricity.
“I was a Ph.D. student in the dungeons of MIT building the first [storage] cells,” Bradwell says.
The ‘Secret Sauce’
Those first storage cells were made of magnesium and antimony, but in order for the prototypes to operate, the metals had to be melted into liquids by getting heated to 700 degrees Celsius. That’s nearly 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit.
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.”
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