Imagine you were running low on battery in an electric car, but instead of having to plug
in to recharge and wait for the battery to refill, you could instead fill up at a pump
in a matter of minutes with an electrically charged fluid, much like you would refill
fuel for a combustion engine car. In this video, we'll see how this is possible and
see what it could mean for electric mobility by replacing the need of lithium ion battery packs.
To understand this breakthrough liquid battery, it is first useful to understand the two technologies
that it is based on. The first of these is the standard lithium ion battery, commonly found
in consumer electronics and electric vehicles. And the second is the redox flow battery, which stores
the energy in the liquid electrolytes and is being used more and more in grid scale energy storage.
Lithium ion batteries consist of a cathode, an anode and a separator, which are all placed in
an electrolyte fluid. When charging, electrons move from the cathode to the anode through an
electrical circuit, and lithium ions move from the cathode into the anode material,
storing energy. When discharging, the process is reversed, releasing stored energy to power devices
or vehicles. Something important to note here is the reason lithium ion batteries can store so
much energy is because of the specially selected cathode and anode materials. On the other hand,
we have redox flow batteries such as the Vanadium redox flow battery,
which consists of two tanks containing liquid electrolyte solutions. The electrolyte fluids
also serve as the anode and cathode because they have vanadium dissolved within them. This idea
of a flow battery is the foundation of the new liquid battery breakthrough. However,
it has one problem that ideas from the lithium ion batteries from before can help solve.
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Now back to flow batteries like the Vanadium redox flow battery we saw earlier. The big
problem with them that means they can't be used in electric vehicles is their low energy density. For
comparison, a Vanadium flow battery stores about one 10th of the energy of a lithium
ion battery of a similar size and weight. Thankfully, the breakthrough from a company
called Inflow Energy, which is a spin out from the Illinois Institute of Technology,
can change that. Remember I said the reason conventional lithium ion batteries can store
so much energy is because of the specially selected cathode and anode materials? Well,
the reason Vanadium redox flow batteries are poor at storing energy is because it
isn't possible to dissolve enough vanadium into the electrolyte fluid, which is important as
vanadium is the active material that stores the energy. This is why Influit Energy is instead
suspending highly energy dense materials as nanoparticles in the electrolyte fluid with
their scientific papers stating this can increase the energy density by 30 times.
This means their nanofluid flow batteries are even more energy dense than current lithium ion
batteries and can benefit from extremely fast recharging or should I say refilling. So let's
look at this breakthrough energy system in some more detail. The idea of suspending electrode
particles inside the electrolytes of a redox flow battery has been explored before, but a
major issue has been that it makes the electrolyte too thick. Influit energy. Say they have solved
this by using nanoparticle which have modified surfaces to prevent the particles collecting
together or sinking to the bottom. Because the active materials don't have to dissolve much more
energy dense materials like those used in current lithium ion batteries can be used. If we look at
the anolyte and catholyte fluids that store the energy, we can see they are roughly the viscosity
of engine oil. Another benefit of this is that the electrolyte fluid is also non-flammable,
potentially making it safer in the event of a spillage. Though, I would be interested to see
what happens if the analyte and catholyte were to be mixed. As one of their publications with NASA
states, it would result in thermal reactions. In terms of operation, the nanoparticle flow
battery is similar to the Vanadium flow battery we saw earlier, except the electrons and ions
are exchanged between the highly energy dense particles suspended within the electrolytes.
Once the electrons have flowed through the required system, the discharged electrolyte
is stored in the discharge tank. Say you wanted to recharge or refill your nanoparticle battery. You
are left with two options. Firstly, you could just plug it into an electricity source and recharge it
like you would a conventional electric vehicle. Or you could pump out the discharged electrolyte
fluids and put in charged ones using the four nozzle pump designed by Influit Energy. This
would also then enable refilling stations to slowly recharge the electrolyte fluid you just
emptied out using intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Now let's see what
they've achieved towards this big vision. Influit Energy has been working with NASA and DARPA,
among others, and the key prototype milestones appear to be their Gen One and Gen Two battery
systems. Judging by their published work and messages I've had with the CEO, it seems like the
Gen One system requirements have been achieved, which see a 23% increase in volumetric energy
density over conventional lithium ion batteries. I have also been informed that they developed a
drop in battery system for an electric utility vehicle that operated back in June of 2022.
Though publicly available, details for this are yet to be released. A very small scale
demonstrator vehicle has been shown driving around their lab, though, so I'm excited to
see some footage of this in full scale vehicles. The Gen Two nano-electrofuel battery prototype
is set to be completed at the end of 2023 and promises to deliver energy densities four to
five times higher than conventional lithium ion battery systems. The Gen Two battery system also
promises to reduce the cost of energy storage to below $90 per kilowatt hour,
compared to $140 per kilowatt hour for conventional lithium ion battery systems
and the Gen One system. Apparently, this will be achieved by utilizing an air cathode,
which is a concept Tesla has been looking into for a number of years now. One key challenge for
the team at Influit Energy is achieving high efficiencies. This is because there are some
additional losses from using the pumps to move the electrolyte fluids. Therefore, the best way
to improve this is to use highly efficient pumps and to keep the viscosity of the fluid relatively
low while still keeping high nanoparticle densities. Clearly, the future applications
for this system could be huge because of the high energy densities and rapid refilling times.
It would be appealing to passenger car vehicles, long haul trucking,
and at large utility vehicles. But excitingly, it may also increase the feasibility of longer
distance electrical powered flight. As you're still watching, please subscribe to the channel
as I think you'll like some of the other videos I make, like this one on toroidal
turbines, which are being used in different applications to improve energy efficiency.