A new kind of flow battery

A new kind of flow battery is fueled by semi-solid suspensions of high-energy-density lithium storage compounds that are electrically ‘wired’ by dilute percolating networks of nanoscale conductor particles. Energy densities are an order of magnitude greater than previous flow batteries; new applications in transportation and grid-scale storage may result.

What looks like crude oil, but it's actually oil's nemesis. If it works, this black sludge will transform the rechargeable battery, doubling the range of electric cars and making petroleum obsolete.

Today's electric cars are handicapped by batteries that are heavy, expensive and a waste of space. Two-thirds of the volume of the battery in Nissan's Leaf electric car, for example, consists of materials that provide structural support but generate no power. And those materials cost more than the electrically active components.

One way to vastly improve rechargeable batteries is to put more of that deadweight to work. That's the purpose of the secret sauce in the bottle, nicknamed "Cambridge crude" by Yet-Ming Chiang and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who developed it.

Source: New Scientist

Photograph: Paul Martin Eldridge