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The Next Generation of Batteries

A Cornell College research team is working on developing the next generation of batteries or battery alternatives — learn more about their solution as demand for batteries continues to increase with limited resources available.

“Right now we don’t have enough lithium and we can’t get enough lithium to make lithium-ion batteries to support a renewable energy grid based on solar and wind alone,” said Dane Markegard  , a junior from Minnesota. “So, these redox flow batteries that we are looking into are essential to supporting a grid and getting power overnight and when it’s not sunny.”

Topics:
Batteries Electrification Power

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    Transcript

    00:00:04 In the Cornell Summer Research Institute,  we're working on a project that will   hopefully help develop the next generation of  batteries or battery alternatives. It turns out   that we need batteries for lots and lots of things:  phones, laptops, cars and it's really a limiting   technology. So we want to design a different  kind of battery. It's called a flow battery,   specifically a redox flow battery. And so in that  case, the chemicals that do the reaction, you flow   them into the battery and then the products of the  reaction you flow out and so you keep bringing new   chemicals in to do the reaction. It's basically two  big solutions an oxidizer and reduction agent, and   they're continuously flowing around their liquids  and they're flowing around into this cell where   they react just as a normal battery would react, where you have a positive and negative and they   go through the ion channel. Overall, what we're  trying to do is figure out exactly what those  

    00:00:54 molecules are doing especially as they give up  and take take in electrons because that's what's   happening in the battery. These are molecules  that they're using kind of as like a model to see   when we move to bigger molecules how they would  work in the battery so it's kind of like getting   the process down so that when we have the bigger,  more reactive molecules we know what we're doing.   It's a big collaboration among six different  schools and it's a specific National Science   Foundation program that is valid - that works only  in certain states and Iowa is one of those states   and Kentucky is another one of the states. And so  it's a collaboration between folks in Iowa and   folks in Kentucky. I really enjoyed going to see  the entire team because when Craig told us about   this project I didn't realize quite how big it was  until we got there. Like he said it's about upwards   of 30. So I didn't realize just how many people  were involved and all the different parts until  

    00:01:43 afterwards. Just feeling like I'm part of a big  program that's doing a lot for the environment and   we're really - it feels like we're doing real  science instead of learning out of textbooks.