Sometimes, in order to go big, you first have to go small. That's what researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have done with their latest innovation in energy storage.
With a goal to speed the time to discovery of new grid energy storage technology, the team designed a compact, high-efficiency flow battery test system that requires an order of magnitude less starting material while delivering results equal to the standard lab-scale test systems. The new mini flow cell design and experimental validation is described in an article published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. The redesigned mini flow cell closely mimics the internal structure of a traditional flow cell, scaled down by a factor of 5. But, despite its smaller size, the mini flow cell exhibits comparable performance to its larger counterpart.
Mini flow battery delivers big results
"This report is the first step, showing that scaling down our experimental system works," said materials scientist and flow battery researcher Ruozhu Feng, a lead author of the study. "Our ultimate goal is to bring the power of AI and robotics into this process to automate and accelerate the testing of new flow battery designs."
By reducing the amount of material needed and speeding up the validation process, this technology could help advance renewable energy solutions. Researchers also believe this miniaturized approach will facilitate experimentation with a broader range of experimental chemistries.
