New wonder battery

Will this be the new wonder battery to replace the Tesla PowerWall which is a bit light weighty and gimmicy ?



Locally-developed nanostructured gel-based batteries to challenge lithium-ion
Thursday, 14 April 2016

Armstrong Energy, a major utility-scale solar energy company based in the UK, will invest $11m into Gelion, a University of Sydney spin-off company, to work on commercially viable, nanostructured, gel-based batteries.

The growing interest in renewable energy has led to demand for batteries in houses and buildings capable of storing excess energy generated on site from sources like solar panels.

Gelion, which is the brainchild of renewable energy and catalysis expert Professor Thomas Maschmeyer, promises battery technology which significantly outcompetes current lithium-ion technology in terms of charging/discharging speeds, size, safety, durability and price.

At the centre of the battery technology being developed by Gelion is Professor Maschmeyer’s design of nanostructured gels. It uses zinc-bromine, but unlike the zinc-bromine flow batteries being developed by another Australian company, Redflow, it uses a gel.

The use of zinc-bromine nanostructured gel allows the batteries to be used in smaller applications, such as cars, computers and mobile devices. In terms of performance, the battery can be charged in just a few minutes, with an efficiency of 90 percent, exceeding that of common lithium-ion batteries today.

The initial market for Gelion is battery storage in residential and commercial buildings. A major incentive for building developers is the fact that the batteries can be flexible in terms of form factors. This means they can be integrated into prefabricated wall structures, for example, with the very walls of buildings acting as battery storage.

“The idea is to build houses with batteries inherently included as part of their structure, ready to take advantage of rapidly improving, solar energy technology and also to serve as a buffer for the grid, enabling an ever greater share of renewables to be connected, while grid stability is maintained,” Professor Maschmeyer explained.

The exchange of contracts between Gelion and Armstrong Energy, and the commitment of $11m means the Australian company could be demonstrating a full commercial prototype within four years.

Following such a demonstration, Gelion would then be able to engineer its technology for mass production, and proceed to full commercialisation.


https://www.engineersaustralia.org....red-gel-based-batteries-challenge-lithium-ion