Sunday, October 01, 2023

Space nickel-hydrogen Battery coming down to earth at large scale thanks to lower cost

Good news! Better energy storage technologies are urgently needed! This could be huge!

This battery technology has been tested in space for years!

"... bring the battery chemistry deployed on the International Space Station, nickel-hydrogen, down to Earth?
“[It’s] the most durable battery ever invented,” ... Nickel-hydrogen batteries ... can last for 30,000 charge cycles, are fireproof, and outperform lithium-ion batteries on a number of key metrics for energy storage at the large scale. ... there’s basically no maintenance on this battery ...
This fall, the company will finish construction of a 92,900-square-meter gigafactory in Kentucky that will start by making up to 5 gigawatt-hours’ worth of batteries annually. He projects the facility will reach its full capacity when it’s churning out 20 GWh of cells per year. ...
Nickel-hydrogen batteries look and work unlike any other battery. They consist of a stack of electrodes inside a pressurized gas tank. The cathode is nickel hydroxide and the anode is hydrogen. When the battery is charging, a catalytic reaction generates hydrogen gas. During discharge, the hydrogen oxidizes and converts back to water. ...
Nickel-hydrogen batteries can run for tens of thousands of cycles, giving them a life of over 30 years. Their use of expensive platinum catalysts kept them relegated to space applications until five years ago, when ... [a] team found an inexpensive nickel-molybdenum-cobalt alloy catalyst for the battery that costs US $20 per kilogram. ...
“I call it the barbecue test,” ... “We take the battery, put it in an open fire, and watch it continue to heat up. What ends up happening is that the pressure above top charge will force the hydrogen back into water. And then we have a release valve designed into the unit, so at a predesigned pressure and temperature that will release, and you’ll get a steam vent.” ...
So far, EnerVenue has been operating a pilot production line that can manufacture 100 megawatt-hours’ worth of batteries per year—and they’ve deployed small-scale test systems. But ... the company already has over 7 GWh, or about $400 million dollars’ worth of purchase orders, ..."

NASA Battery Tech to Deliver for the Grid - IEEE Spectrum A battery built for satellites brings grid-scale storage down to Earth

... cylindrical batteries are low-maintenance and non-volatile and will require no special heating, cooling, or safety systems—unlike lithium-ion battery storage.


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