Liquid Metal Battery Test

[Guiseppe]

"Hay has been chosen as a potential test site for the innovative and sustainable Liquid Metal Battery technology. At the launch of the Liquid Metal Battery Research Company at the National Press Club in Canberra last week, Gordon Hinds, CEO of the Sydney company Gentle Deer and Adjunct Professor of Sustainability at Boston University, said that Hay was an ideal test site due to its isolation, the costs of supplying electricity to remote areas, and the size of the town. Council's Director Community Development Jack Terblanche attended the launch at the invitation of Mr Hinds.

Liquid Metal Batteries has been developed by Professor Donald Sadoway from the MIT, and this technology changes the way electricity can be stored. The technology has been in development for the past ten years, and recently it has been commercialised. There is still research to be completed before the manufacture of the technology in Australia, and the testing of this technology in Hay.

Council is pleased to be involved in this initiative, as the Council is committed to renewable energy generation."

Sounds like a few hectares of solar panels and this battery - or two - could be the way to go.

EDIT: - and, of course, a Government committed to renewable energy ...

[Tiny]

Hmm, looks interesting.

A recent article in Nature suggests that has switched to a lithium-antimony-lead liquid-metal battery materials system for its grid-scale energy storage technology. The company did not confirm the new material.

Ambri is the battery firm that is based on the research of Donald Sadoway, MIT professor of materials chemistry, and inspired by the economies of scale facilitated by modern electrometallurgy and the aluminum smelter.
The big-battery startup has raised more than $50 million in venture capital from investors KLP Enterprises, of Karen Pritzker and Michael Vlock, Building Insurance Bern, , Bill Gates and French energy giant Total, along with plenty of MIT and government grant money.
The three battery layers in the Ambri device are self-segregating, cheap to manufacture, and earth-abundant, according to the firm. The materials used in the original design were magnesium and antimony separated by a salt -- but "we needed higher voltage and lower temperature," said Ambri's CTO, David Bradwell, in a recent presentation, and so the firm developed a new, undisclosed chemistry with the help of ARPA-E funding.
But, as mentioned, in Nature suggests that the team has been busy developing a lithium-antimony-lead formulation for grid-level energy storage.
Here are excerpts from the paper:

• This Li||Sb-Pb battery comprises a liquid lithium negative electrode, a molten salt electrolyte, and a liquid antimony-lead alloy positive electrode, which self-segregate by density into three distinct layers owing to the immiscibility of the contiguous salt and metal phases.
• The all-liquid construction confers the advantages of higher current density, longer cycle life and simpler manufacturing of large-scale storage systems (because no membranes or separators are involved) relative to those of conventional batteries.
• At charge-discharge current densities of 275 milliamperes per square centimeter, the cells cycled at 450 degrees Celsius with 98 percent Coulombic efficiency and 73 percent round-trip energy efficiency.
• Our results demonstrate that alloying a high-melting-point, high-voltage metal (antimony) with a low-melting-point, low-cost metal (lead) advantageously decreases the operating temperature while maintaining a high cell voltage. Apart from the fact that this finding puts us on a desirable cost trajectory, this approach may well be more broadly applicable to other battery chemistries.

FIGURE:Cell Schematic of Li||Sb-Pb Liquid Metal Battery

Source: Nature
Ambri's Bradwell would not confirm if this was the material in use, but did tell GTM in an email, "The performance of our cells now far exceeds even the strong cell performance described in the Nature paper (for example, our cells have reached a much lower fade rate of ~0.0002%/cycle)."
The firm is working on prototype storage systems in Massachusetts, Hawaii, New York and Alaska, with project partners such as First Wind, Hawaiian Electric, and Con Edison.

[gordon_s1942]

Hay, Hell and Booligal ehhh??
I would suggest those interested find the Wikipedia details on that title used by A.B (Banjo) Paterson to describe the general area as he saw it back then.
I personally have never been through the area but I dont doubt those that live there think it is the greatest place on Earth and will be pleased to have this operation set up there if it provides work but I have to ask my self 'WHY?' there and not one of a hundred other locations available in any State.

I am trying to find where but a large Solar Panel array was being built out in the Central Western area of NSW that was going to be the 'Way of the Future' has hit a snag and has now been 'mothballed' and left unfinished.

[Guiseppe]

I am trying to find where but a large Solar Panel array was being built out in the Central Western area of NSW that was going to be the 'Way of the Future' has hit a snag and has now been 'mothballed' and left unfinished.

There is a very large array on the Canberra - Cooma road but the future of it is in doubt now because of Government policy ....

[gordon_s1942]

I only caught part of the news report but I thought it was out further west but no matter, I hope this battery project has the 'Legs' to go the distance and not just another 'projection' offering much but fails to materialise.