Taking an innovative approach to battery design

Monday, April 23, 2012 - 03:30 in Physics & Chemistry

Donald Sadoway Photo: M. Scott Brauer You have to give Donald Sadoway points for style: Not many professors come to the last class of a semester dressed in black tie, decorate the table with linen and a vase of fresh roses, and toast their students with champagne. But then, Sadoway has a tendency to do things differently.Sadoway, the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry at MIT, has earned a crescendo of recognition this year for his pioneering work on an entirely new type of battery, one based on floating layers of high-temperature molten metal and salt. The battery could provide electricity storage on a scale useful to major electric utilities — allowing them to store energy whenever it’s available and cheap, and then pump it back into the grid when it’s most needed. Such storage capability could be the key to making intermittent sources of power — such as sun,...

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