What is a flow battery?

Flow batteries provide long-lasting, rechargeable energy storage, particularly for grid reliability. Unlike solid-state batteries, flow batteries store energy in liquid electrolyte, shown here in yellow and blue.

Can a flow battery reduce the size of a cell?

Nian Liu’s lab at Georgia Tech developed a more compact flow-battery-cell configuration that reduces the size of the cell by 75 percent, and correspondingly reduces the size and cost of the entire flow battery.

Are flow batteries the future of energy?

Solar and wind power are growing faster than ever, according to the International Energy Agency. Making these intermittent energy sources a regular part of the grid without causing instabilities will require batteries to store energy on a large scale. Flow batteries are a promising technology for that.

Could a flow battery revolutionize the world?

The work could revolutionize how everything from major commercial buildings to residential homes are powered. Flow batteries get their name from the flow cell where electron exchange happens. Their conventional design, the planar cell, requires bulky flow distributors and gaskets, increasing size and cost but decreasing overall performance.

Are flow batteries a solution?

The all-Georgia Tech research team published their findings in the paper, “ A Sub-Millimeter Bundled Microtubular Flow Battery Cell With Ultra-high Volumetric Power Density ,” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Flow batteries offer a solution.

How much does a flow battery cost?

Flow batteries can, in theory, be easily scaled up to megawatt-hours by increasing the size of the tanks. They can also have longer lifetimes and be safer than lithium ion. They remain costly, though, with a capital cost of around US $800 per kilowatt-hour, more than twice that of lithium-ion batteries.