Liquid Battery a cost effective alternative to end Energy crisis
While solar power may be a great, cheap way of heating up the bath water, this form of renewable energy can simply not be depended upon 24 hours of the day. What we lack is a decent power storage system but Professor Donald Sadoway may have the answer. The TR10 is a liquid battery and the result of the efforts of Sadoway and his design team at MIT.
This battery is unique because all its active components are liquid; the two electrodes are molten metals magnesium and antimony, while the electrolyte is a molten salt. The liquids are of different densities so they automatically form three separate layers, the relative volumes of which change each time the battery charges or discharges. The TR10 has the ability to rapidly absorb and store large amounts of energy. Sadoway claims that the electrodes of his battery can work at electrical currents “tens of times higher than any that’s ever been measured.”
Photovoltaic technology has developed quickly over recent years but has never been used on a large scale. The liquid battery, says Sadoway “is capable of storing the grid.” Is this really feasible? Economically, yes: The TR10 costs less than a third of the modern battery since the materials it uses are inexpensive and the design is simple enough to cut manufacturing costs too. Since none of the active materials are solid, the battery has a longer life. (No component cracks or degrades over time.)
For any of you concerned about the highly volatile nature of molten magnesium and toxicity of antimony, don’t sweat it out too soon. The liquid battery developed at MIT is only a prototype and its creators are testing out alternative metals and salts. They hope to get a commercial battery ready for the market in 3-5 years. So perhaps in the next decade, your own house will cut down its carbon footprint and run solely on shiny roof shingles and a trashcan-sized Super- Battery.
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June 17th, 2009 at 9:34 am
[...] and consider the by-products a bonus. The future certainly has a lot in store. If you remember the TR10 liquid battery, it only takes some imagination to see what combining various technologies can do. The sun could [...]
July 1st, 2009 at 9:04 am
I would indeed be concerned with this prototype, the melting point of magnesium is 650 deg C! Presumably the metal used in the retail version will be molten closer to room temperature, perhaps Murcury? But then Murcury has its own issues!
Still the rapid charging at Currents ‘ten times higher than have ever been measured’ seems like it would be more suited to industrial rather than domestic useage.