Scientists enumerate advances, retreats in designing new membranes for renewable energy storage
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - 12:01
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- Making wind and solar energy reliable parts of the nation's power grid means storing energy when it is created and discharging it when needed. Vanadium redox flow batteries could be the storage solution. However, an internal membrane's cost and performance has hampered widespread use. Currently, the thin Nafion membrane is responsible for 11% of the entire battery's cost. Research on replacing or refining this membrane was examined by Dr. Birgit Schwenzer and her peers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Their review appears in a special edition of ChemSusChem, a top 20 multidisciplinary chemistry journal.