The need for inexpensive, fast, reliable chemistries and technologies for storing renewable energy is breaking the lithium-ion mould. Get used to the terms “beyond-LIBs”, “strain engineering” and “hydrogen-bonding metal hydrides”, and enter the labs of Professor Guoxiu Wang at the University of Technology Sydney and Professor Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou at the University of New South Wales.
Professor Aguey-Zinsou’s new technology could provide energy at 2 cents per kilowatt hour and is expected to be patented within weeks.
At UNSW’s Materials Energy Research Laboratory in nanoscale (MERlin), Aguey-Zinsou has been working on storing hydrogen by bonding it with solid materials, such as magnesium nanoparticles.
It’s a safer approach than storing hydrogen in gas or liquid form; and many hydrides act like a sponge for hydrogen, absorbing it to the high volumetric capacity required for efficient storage of energy.
Aguey-Zinsou, who has spent 20 years investigating hydrogen-bonding metal hydrides, has applied his breakthrough technology — a hydrogen-absorbing metal alloy that includes titanium — to an energy-storage system designed for residential and commercial use, which could be commercialised in early 2021.
“It’s a game changer in how we use electricity,” the Professor told the Sydney Morning Herald, likening the development to “the internet revolution”, and emphasising the safety of the chemistry involved — “It’s not flammable,” he said.
The resulting residential battery system, engineered at UNSW’s Hydrogen Energy Research Centre, which has received $10 million in funding from Providence Asset Group, is expected to have a 60 kWh capacity and occupy the space of a mini-fridge with a height of about 130 cm.
A co-founder of Providence, Alan Yu, has said the batteries will be manufactured in Australia and will be branded LAVO.
He also hopes to scale the system by containerising numerous battery units to be used at scale on projects such as the community 4.5 MW Manilla Solar Farm near Tamworth, developed by Providence Asset Group with the help of $3.5 million in funding from the NSW Government Regional Community Energy Fund.
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