A Battery
Inspired by Vitamins
Research opens a ‘new universe’ of organic
July 18, 2016 -- A new class of high-performing organic molecules, inspired by vitamin B2, that can safely store electricity from intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power in flow batteries, like the one above. (Image courtesy of Kaixiang Lin/Harvard University)
Research opens a ‘new universe’ of organic
molecules that can store energy in flow
batteries
By Leah Burrows, HarvardJuly 18, 2016 -- A new class of high-performing organic molecules, inspired by vitamin B2, that can safely store electricity from intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power in flow batteries, like the one above. (Image courtesy of Kaixiang Lin/Harvard University)
Harvard researchers have identified a whole new class of
high-performing organic molecules, inspired by vitamin B2, that can safely
store electricity from intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power in
large batteries.
The development builds on previous work in which the team
developed a high-capacity flow battery that stored energy in organic molecules
called quinones and a food additive called ferrocyanide. That advance was a
game-changer, delivering the first high-performance, non-flammable, non-toxic,
non-corrosive, and low-cost chemicals that could enable large-scale,
inexpensive electricity storage.
While the versatile quinones show great promise for flow
batteries, Harvard researchers continued to explore other organic molecules in
pursuit of even better performance. But finding that same versatility in other
organic systems has been challenging.
“Now, after considering about a million different
quinones, we have developed a new class of battery electrolyte material that
expands the possibilities of what we can do,” said Kaixiang Lin, a Ph.D.
student at Harvard and first author of the paper. “Its simple synthesis means
it should be manufacturable on a large scale at a very low cost, which is an
important goal of this project.”
The new research is published in Nature Energy.
Flow batteries store energy in
solutions in external tanks — the bigger the tanks, the more energy they store.
In 2014, Michael J. Aziz, the Gene and Tracy Sykes Professor of Materials and
Energy Technologies at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and
Applied Scienes (SEAS), Roy Gordon, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of
Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science, Alan Aspuru Guzik, Professor of
Chemistry and their team at Harvard replaced metal ions used as conventional
battery electrolyte materials in acidic electrolytes with quinones, molecules
that store energy in plants and animals. In 2015, they developed a quinone that
could work in alkaline solutions alongside a common food additive.
In this most recent research, the team found inspiration
in vitamin B2, which helps to store energy from food in the body. The key
difference between B2 and quinones is that nitrogen atoms, instead of oxygen
atoms, are involved in picking up and giving off electrons.
“With only a couple of tweaks to the original B2
molecule, this new group of molecules becomes a good candidate for alkaline
flow batteries,” said Aziz. “They have high stability and solubility and
provide high battery voltage and storage capacity. Because vitamins are
remarkably easy to make, this molecule could be manufactured on a large scale
at a very low cost.”
“We designed these molecules to suit the needs of our
battery, but really it was nature that hinted at this way to store energy,”
said Gordon, co-senior author of the paper. “Nature came up with similar
molecules that are very important in storing energy in our bodies.”
The team will continue to explore quinones, as well as
this new universe of molecules, in pursuit of a high-performing, long-lasting
and inexpensive flow battery.
Harvard’s Office of Technology Development has been
working closely with the research team to navigate the shifting complexities of
the energy storage market and build relationships with companies well
positioned to commercialize the new chemistries.
The paper was authored by Lin, Aziz, Gordon,
Aspuru-Guzik, Rafael Gómez-Bombarelli, Eugene S. Beh, Liuchuan Tong, Qing
Chen, and Alvaro Valle.
The research was supported by the Department of Energy's
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, the Massachusetts Clean
Energy Technology
Center
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