New affordable battery stores solar at room temperature 

A combination of materials developed by Stanford researchers have created a rechargeable battery able to store renewable power developed through wind or solar sources. It delivers energy to the electric grid quickly, economically and at room temperatures.

A battery known as a flow battery has   been a strong candidate for storing intermittent renewable energy. Stanford assistant professor of materials science and engineering William Chueh, along with his PhD student Antonio Baclig and Jason Rugolo, tried applying sodium and potassium to the research of flow batteries. The liquid metal has at least 10 times the available energy per gram as other candidates for the negative-side fluid of a flow battery. "We still have a lot of work to do," said Baclig, "but this is a new type of flow battery that could affordably enable much higher use of solar and wind power using Earth-abundant materials."

To use the liquid metal negative end of the battery successfully, a suitable ceramic membrane made of potassium and aluminum oxide to keep the negative and positive materials separate while allowing current to flow was discovered. With these advances together, it more than doubled the maximum voltage of traditional flow batteries. The prototype also remained stable for thousands of hours of operation. This translates to storing more energy for its size, that reduces the cost of making the battery.

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