Grid Think

You know I have been wrong before, but never so pleasantly surprised. I spent the last two months trying to copy VRFB........ well, not exactly. I wanted to make an Iron-Chromium Redox Flow Battery that was just as good as VRFB. That means its power density, efficiencies and performance should match closely with VRFB.  But as I have stated many times earlier, Fe-Cr batteries have a fundamental flaw, they can't operate at room temperature, which is the fundamental reason why they have not been commercialized yet. In my previous post I wrote about a paper that I had recently found, it added salt to the battery in order to enable it to operate  at room temperature. Let's understand how  The paper used salt to increase the kinetics of chromium at room temperature. This happened because the lithium (or in my case sodium) chloride increased the concentration of chloride ions in the electrolyte solution. This causes excessive Cl⁻ ions in the electrolyte solution and increased c...

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...

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 ...

 I'll be honest, I didn't dream of Iron Chromium Redox flow battery in my dreams, nor did I have any secret information from NASA. I did what any other 22 year old would, ask Gemini about it. If you ask Gemini or ChatGPT about VRFBs, there are high chances that it will suggest alternate chemistries also. Now that can be a good thing or a bad thing. If you know a little bit electrochemistry, it would spit out a very obvious answer. If you don't, you'll go down the same rabbit hole I did. AI doesn't know your intentions. So it acts as the most efficient information summarizer, and that's great, if you just want information, not if you want action. So one of the first alternatives to VRFBs Gemini suggested was Iron - Chromium, and it made a lot of sense because Iron and Chromium are commodity metals, Iron is literally the most mined metal on earth and chromium comes third [ source ]. Their commodity prices are - Iron - $110 per ton   (at the time of writing) Chromi...

Search flow batteries anywhere on the internet, you'll find Vanadium's monopoly, ask any AI model about flow batteries and they'll assume vanadium and give you all the information. That's because Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (or VRFBs in short) are already being commercialized, or at least they're trying their best.  I'll try to explain why, but before i move further, i forgot to explain the redox part in the last 2 posts. All Batteries are Redox Batteries- Batteries have 3 basic parts, positive side (cathode), negative side (anode) and a membrane or separator. So, when you connect a charger to your phone, the charger takes electrons from positive and gives it to the negative side, but if the positive and negative mix together they will neutralize each other, so they need to be separated by separator (or membrane). The word "redox" is made of two words : Reduction- gaining of electrons (by the negative side) Oxidation - loss of electrons (by the posit...

We all know what a battery is, that same thing in almost every portable electronic device in your room has. Most batteries we use in our day to day are static batteries, i.e. once they are manufactured, their chemical composition doesn't really change. Now the chemicals used in a battery dictate everything about it, like its - 1. Cyclability  2. Efficiency 3. Safety 4. Supply chain constraints. Let me explain in a little more detail using examples - The AA and AAA batteries (chemical composition is Zinc and Manganese) normally used in T.V remotes are not rechargeable, they are single use. Once the energy inside them is used them, they are pretty much dead. They are mildly toxic, but safe to use, efficiency doesn't come into picture as they can't be recharged, energy density is ( 50-150 Wh/kg ) The Lithium Ion batteries in your phones and EVs are rechargeable (Duh !). Its of many types, i am aware of only two- a) NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt along with Lithium)  b) LFP (Lith...