A groundbreaking energy storage system could help reduce electric vehicle charging times from hours to seconds.
Published in the Nature Chemistry journal, chemists based at the University of Glasgow revealed that they have developed a ‘flow battery system’ which uses a nano-molecule which can store either electric power or hydrogen gas.
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The ‘hybrid-electric-hydrogen’ flow battery can store and release energy on demand, and when a liquid is used containing the nano-molecules, the energy storage available increases by 10.
If used in an electric vehicle, the system could charge a car in seconds rather than hours, and with a liquid system, drivers could fill up batteries with charged liquid and remove the old liquid at the same time – which could then be replenished and used again.
The system was designed by Professor Leroy Cronin, the University of Glasgow’s Regius Chair of chemistry, and Dr Mark Symes, senior lecturer of electrochemistry, alongside researcher Dr Jia Jia Chen.
Professor Cronin said: “For future renewables to be effective high capacity and flexible energy storage systems are needed to smooth out the peaks and troughs in supply.
“Our approach will provide a new route to do this electrochemically and could even have application in electric cars where batteries can still take hours to recharge and have limited capacity.
“Moreover, the very high energy density of our material could increase the range of electric cars, and also increase the resilience of energy storage systems to keep the lights on at times of peak demand.”
