Grid Think

Nafion and FumaSep, both membranes are pretty expensive for me, and if they are expensive for me I don't think they would be any cheaper for any Flow Battery manufacturer. Because its basic economics, if your raw materials are expensive your end product can't be cheap. So most flow battery manufacturers don't really bother with inventing new membranes, they use a material called DARAMIC separator, it is made up of Polypropylene (PP) or Polyethylene (PE) sheets with micro level holes in them, nothing new, its a 50 year old separator material which is used to separate positive and negative side. Daramic is used in literally all batteries, you name it, Lithium Ion, Sodium Ion, Lead Acid , All- Iron Hybrid Batteries and yes even Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries.  Source There has been substantial amount of research on cheap membranes, but most of them last only a few weeks and the membranes that actually last.... well they are Nafion and Fumasep. But Daramic works in a fundamental...

I may have mentioned membranes many times in my past posts, but I may have not mentioned what exactly does it do, but it is one of the most important parts in a flow battery, fuel cell, electrolyzer or any other electrochemical system. Let's understand why - Ion Exchange Membrane- When most people talk about membranes in terms of electrochemical systems, they are mostly talking about a sheet of special materials that let one some atoms pass through and stop the others, think of it like a filter or sieve. If you have ever used an RO you know what a membrane is, the membrane in the RO or filter system lets mostly water pass through, not the salts dissolved in it, so what comes on one end of the RO is pure water and what remains is impure water. The RO membranes are pretty cheap, because you can replace them every couple of years, but if you want a membrane that lasts 20 or maybe even 10 years, you enter a different league. Types of Membranes- There are many types of membranes in rese...

Full disclosure, I haven't made the best flow battery cell stack. If you have been reading my blog, I haven't even designed it myself. I have been replicating the cell stack from a Youtuber named CAYREX , every battery enthusiast should check his channel out.  But I have been lazy, instead of reading books, research papers and patents on stack design and designing my own cell stack, I just took the STL files from Cayrex's Patreon page and got them 3d printed, but after months of battery testing and troubleshooting with someone else's stack. I'll be breaking down the difference between Industrial grade stacks and a DIY stack. The images I will show will be mainly of CAYREX's stack, but this is applicable for all DIY and lab scale stacks Problem 1- Screws This is a photo of flow battery cell stack from the internet - Image 1-   Source  This is a good stack but, its problem is that the screws are inside the stack housing. These will corrode very badly the moment th...

I'll be honest, I have a tendency to nerd out about stuff and not really take action on it, so every once in a while I push myself to BUILD the battery, because AI can "brainstorm" all day, but can't build a battery So after reading some research papers on Iron-Chromium battery, I decided to build one, but this time I wanted to get some visual result, something a 5 year old kid can recognize, I had to light up an LED, but a single of Iron-Chromium battery has voltage of 1 Volt. That doesn't do anything. So I had to build another cell stack to get 2 V, this easily lights up a Red LED  . Making the Stack So ordered the 3D printed parts from online shop, I already had Iron chloride from my all iron build, I ordered Chromium Chloride (very cheap, very easily available, order online). If you want to know how to build it you can see my previous post . Since I already had a leak proof cell, making another one was not really a problem I just used some RO fittings and join...

If Iron Chromium Redox Flow Battery is so cheap, abundant, simple and elegant...... Why isn't it everywhere ? Why was Vanadium even needed in the first place ? Why hasn't anyone commercialized it yet ? Well..... because it has its own set of problems. Physics and economics aren't really best friends, the more money you spend the better battery you get, the cheaper you get, your efficiency takes a plunge. And trust me you DON'T want a shitty battery. The way I see it for flow batteries- Vanadium is expensive but simple and has good efficiency Iron Chromium is cheaper than Vanadium, but more expensive than Iron, so it has Hydrogen problem of Iron but manufacturing simplicity and efficiency of Vanadium. Iron is dirt cheap, but I would personally not buy it, I don't want a battery that wastes half its energy, because you have to pay for every unit you put in. This is my take on viable redox flow battery chemistries. Don't get me wrong, there are many newer more amaz...