The insane engineering of liquid metal battery technology-How does its works?

this episode of science scout takes it to the next level before we start please make sure you subscribe to this channel and hit the bell to get notified about our new upcoming videos today we would be discussing about a battery that possibly could change the world a battery of the future most batteries are made up of either solid-state electrodes such as lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics or liquid state electrodes including flow batteries for smart grids most industry executives and researchers argue that lithium-ion batteries will pave the way to future of solar storage take for example tesla's powerwall which uses rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for stationary energy storage that can power your home through the sun's rays and according to grandview research the lithium-ion market is projected to be worth 93.1 billion dollars by 2025. but a novel concept in reversible chemical to electrical energy storage known as liquid metal battery could change all of this this battery system is much different as it is the only battery where all three active components are in liquid form when the battery operates so what exactly is this novel liquid metal battery liquid metal battery is a new type of battery in which both electrodes and the electrolyte are in liquid state it was designed to provide battery storage to compensate for imbalances in electrical grids it was invented by mit professor donald sattaway and his then graduate student david bradwell designed the first proofs of concept using antimony and magnesium with assault electrolyte in 2010 they formed a company which has been funded by bill gates costa ventures and energy company total to form a battery pack 54 cells are stacked together 16 packs which the company calls an ambry core will provide 200 kilowatt hours of energy storage when several of these storage units are strung together in a full-size unit ambry anticipates it can provide 500 kilowatts of power for four hours the liquid battery comes with a wide range of benefits that sets it apart from the commonly used lithium batteries it's designed to produce lower operating temperatures and more stored energy at a lower cost liquid metal battery has the potential to revolutionize energy storage but how does the metal liquid battery actually work classical batteries typically have solid electrodes in a liquid electrolyte but the liquid metal battery is composed of two liquid metal electrodes magnesium and antimony which are being separated by a molten salt electrolyte the upper electrode is a low density liquid metal selected from the electropositive electron donor elements and the lower electrode is a high density metal chosen from the electronegative electron acceptor elements a medium density molten electrolyte is sandwiched in between both electrodes and this allows medication transport between the anode and cathode because of the different densities of the electrodes and electrolyte and also their levels of immiscibility when heated to liquid form rather than mixing they self-aggregate based on their levels of density and float into three distinct layers however the electrolyte can dissolve both metals this removes the need for a separator as opposed in conventional energy cells discharging magnesium is an electron donor and the discharge cycle begins with enough electrons on the anode supporting an electric field across the cell between the anode and the cathode during this discharge the magnesium anode is consumed as the magnesium ions migrate from the upper magnesium layer seeping through the electrolyte to form a magnesium antimony mgsb alloy with the antimony in the lower layer increasing its volume any excess electrons on the anode flow through the external circuit to the cathode where they neutralize the positive charge of the cachins the external current flows in the opposite direction from the electrons which is from the cathode to the anode thereby delivering power to the load charging in order to charge the liquid metal batteries power from an external source drives electrons in the opposite direction and at the same time pulling magnesium ions from the magnesium antimony alloy and redepositing metallic magnesium back into the top layer thereby returning the system to its three distinct liquid layers in order to keep the active metals and electrolyte in active state liquid metal batteries have to operate at an elevated temperature and this is achieved by self-heating during charging and discharging resulting in a low cost and long lasting storage system when a liquid metal battery operates at room temperature there exists potential energy between the electrodes which creates a cell voltage the cell voltage is determined by the difference in electronegativity of the metals which relates to the difference in their fermi energies the larger the difference the greater the cell voltage these electronegativity and fermi energy differences were paralleled by the respective densities a feature which fortunately enabled the requirement for liquid density differences and layer ordering to be concurrently satisfied now that we have a clear understanding of the metal liquid battery structure and how it works let's look at some of the advantages and disadvantages liquid metal batteries offer us immense advantages one of the most important being that they have a very low cost for example ambry cells utilize electrodes comprised of commodity materials that cost a third of those in nmc lithium-ion cells the manufacturing of ambry cells is far simpler and requires a third to a half the capital expense per megawatt hour of production than lithium-ion this is largely due to the fact that most of the materials being used are earth abundant and way cheaper than other materials furthermore ambry based systems do not have cooling fire suppression or module in rack based bms equipment as lithium-ion systems require for these reasons ambry-based systems are projected to cost 30 to 50 percent below equivalent lithium-ion systems from 2022 to 2030 even after accounting for the aggressive sale price reductions that are forecast for the incumbent product lithium-ion batteries are projected to drop in price from current levels to less than a hundred dollars per kilowatt hour at some time in the mid to late 2020s even compared to this low future lithium-ion price of a hundred dollars per kilowatt hour these energy storage systems will be 70 percent more expensive than ambry-based battery systems also the natural self-segregation of the active liquid components enables a simpler and low-cost cell fabrication when compared with other conventional batteries another advantage of liquid metal is that overall liquid metal batteries are more suitable for large-scale electricity storage compared to the popular lithium-ion batteries the liquid metal battery though heavy it cannot burn and neither does it fade with use lastly when compared to its strong competitor lithium-ion batteries it seems that liquid metal batteries are more suitable for large-scale electricity storage despite these advantages liquid metal battery has its disadvantages the biggest disadvantage of this technology is the elevated operating temperatures which are generally less than 200 degrees celsius also there are three liquid layers that make operation of the battery very sensitive to motion and this becomes very dangerous when the liquid electrodes touch which leads to a short-circuited cell and fleeting heat generation however according to ambry at room temperature ambry's cell is non-conductive and its active materials are solid metals and a solid electrolyte upon heating to 500 degrees celsius temperature ambry based battery systems operate at maximum performance level no matter the external temperature and require no power hungry air conditioning ambry based systems generate their own heat during use thereby eliminating the need for auxiliary power for temperature control these systems like to be used a full charge discharge cycle at least every two days will keep the system at its operating temperature and higher duty cycles will not increase degradation i have spoken so far of advantages and disadvantages but now i want to talk about the materials cost and abundance metals the use of antimony sb as the positive liquid electrode in a liquid metal battery offers a low cost chemistry below the threshold cost required for broad scale adoption of a large-scale electricity storage technology antimony could potentially drop the cost of the active components by a factor of five while providing similar voltages for analogous chemistries molten chloride salts such as magnesium chloride potassium chloride and sodium chloride are suitable as the electrolyte providing high conductivity a suitable density and liquid range and stability with reactive metals now let's talk about bringing liquid metal batteries to the market grid scale storage is a key target for liquid metal battery technology and its energy storage capacity ambry has a 1 000 kilowatt hour capacity 250 kilowatts output 500 to 1500 voltage response time less than 500 milliseconds and exceeds 80 percent of dc efficiency under wide range of use cases which fits into and can be delivered in a 10-foot shipping container ambry a liquid metal startup signed a joint development agreement with nec energy solutions the agreement will see nec develop and design an energy storage system based on the liquid metal battery technology of ambry nec will also employ its proprietary aeros energy storage operating system and controls in order to optimize the system of performance of the ambry based energy systems for nec customers that could include utilities independent power producers ipps and other project developers ambry itself has raised over 50 million dollars to further develop and improve on its liquid metal battery technology they claim that when batteries are tested in the lab they are often cycled 12 times per day this allows researchers to achieve 1000 cycles in just a few months researchers are often tempted to extrapolate this cycle life to predict a lifespan for example if a battery maintains 90 of its capacity after 1 000 cycles then it should maintain 70 percent of its capacity after 3 000 cycles and if the battery is used just once per day then 3000 cycles should last nearly 10 years in addition to that some extensive laboratory testing on over 2500 cells with a cumulative test time of 600 000 hours and 100 000 cycles shows that the all liquid cell design avoids the main failure mechanisms experienced by solid components and other battery technologies which enable their systems to have a projected lifespan of over 15 years with no degradation in performance the liquid metal battery provides an innovative approach to solving grid-scale electricity storage problems and its capabilities allow an improved integration of renewable resources into power grids are you interested in learning about biofuels their history classification types uses production and the cost of production watch the next video before we conclude this amazing video let us know what new things you learned about metal liquid battery comment down below and enlighten us with your thoughts on this also subscribe to our channel and hit that bell icon to get notified about our new upcoming videos with that being said we've reached the end of this video thanks for watching it we'll be back with more interesting videos till then take care and never stop learning

Channel: Science Scout

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Keywords: The insane engineering of liquid metal battery, what is liquid metal battery, liquid metal battery technology, liquid metal battery vs lithium ion, ambri liquid metal battery, liquid metal battery donald sadoway, liquid metal battery 2020, diy liquid metal battery, how does a liquid metal battery work, liquid metal battery sadoway, energy, battery, donald sadoway, mit, technology, renewable energy, energy storage, solar power, energy futures lab, lithium ion batteries, Clean energy

Id: tVzpL_xBX1E

Length: 11min 17sec (677 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020