Grid Think

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...

Energy Storage Systems Technology (ESS Tech Inc), the star child of flow battery industry, one of the few flow battery companies to ever go public, a technology with raw materials so cheap that you could buy them for pennies. This is the company I looked up to for 3 months, the ingenuity in their technology. Of course, a battery of iron is the way to go, its an economic masterstroke. Source But I was missing something, if it was so easy to build, why wasn't everyone doing this. All Iron redox flow battery should be easy, if any Indian or Chinese manufacturer knew about this technology, they would reverse engineer it in 1 year.  But I was wrong, not only because they hold a LOT of patents (103 granted, 214 filed), but also because physics doesn't give free lunch. So here are the roadblocks I ran headfirst into, while trying to copy ESS. 1. The Stack  As I mentioned in the last post , charging an Iron Redox Flow Battery is like electroplating, it requires slow charging, which me...

Iron and Vanadium based electrolytes can both be used Redox flow batteries, both use tanks, pumps and cell stack, but they don't operate the same way. While Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries stay completely liquid in their operation, All Iron Hybrid Batteries don't. And the name itself tells you why-  Hybrid. When you charge an All Iron battery, its positive side converts Fe2+ to Fe3+, and stays liquid, but the negative side converts Fe2+ to Fe0, or solid iron.  So why is solid iron a problem ? Well because - 1.The electrode that we have used i.e. graphitic carbon felt, is a conductive sponge, it is designed to absorb liquid and transfer electrical energy to it, it instantly clogs when solid iron is deposited on it. 2. Solid iron is not soft, nor does it grow evenly, it grows in the shape of needles or dendrites (if you have ever seen iron filings, that's solid iron). Iron dendrites 3. Deposition of solid iron is also called electroplating, and current density in electroplating...

When I left the Iron Redox Flow Battery overnight connected to the AA battery, and switched on the pumps again in the morning, I immediately noticed brown liquid flowing through the pipe into the tank, so I asked AI what happened (novice here too !!😇), then I had to understand how exactly a battery works. So buck up, now we are going into depths of battery science, but first the basic- Current is how many electrons can you push in the circuit per second, voltage is how hard you can push them, current density is how many electrons can pass through battery electrode per unit area per second. The higher the current density; faster the battery charges, lower the current density; slower the battery charges. But remember, per unit area, so the total amount of current flowing in the battery is dependent on area of the electrode also. A good battery crams as many electrons possible as quickly as possible in a unit area of the electrode. For instance, when you connect a fast/turbo charger to y...

So, when looking for a cheaper alternative to Vanadium batteries, I stumbled upon all iron chemistry,  the absolute cheapest battery chemistry possible, using only iron, the most mined element from Earth's crust. The metal so cheap that its literally the basis of human civilization. No need to heat the battery, no need to check supply chains, Iron is so abundant that you can find it wherever humans are. I was convinced, Gemini gave me the broke college kid solution. So I ordered Iron chloride from the internet, you know how much lab grade 500g highest purity cost me ? Rs 800 ($8), that's pennies as compared to Vanadium. So before I give you step by step procedure of building you own Iron Redox Flow Battery we need to understand how it works. Working of Iron Redox Flow Battery Similar to Vanadium, Iron redox flow battery has iron on both sides, on both sides it is in Fe2+ state, when it charges on the positive side it converts Fe2+ to Fe3+ (loses 1 electron) and on the negative ...