US plans new water-powered battery tech to target gird-scale energy storage

The Aqueous Battery Consortium, comprising Stanford University, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and 13 other institutions, aims to overcome batteries’ major limitations by using water as the primary component of its electrolyte.

On September 3, the US Department of Energy (DOE) selected the Aqueous Battery Consortium as an energy hub research project. Under the DOE’s Energy Innovation Hubs program, the consortium could receive up to $62.5 million over five years.

The grant of $125 million aims to develop the scientific foundation needed to seed and accelerate next-generation technologies beyond today’s generation of lithium (Li)-ion batteries.

The Energy Storage Research Alliance, headed by Argonne National Laboratory, is the other battery-focused Energy Innovation Hub that the DOE unveiled today.

“This project will undertake the grand challenge of electrochemical energy storage in a world dependent on intermittent solar and wind power. We need affordable, grid-scale energy storage that will work dependably for a long time,” said Yi Cui, the project’s director and Stanford professor at SLAC, in a statement.

Aqueous battery advances

A significant amount of stationary energy storage is required to achieve net-zero global greenhouse gas emissions, and water is the only feasible solvent available at the necessary scale and cost for such batteries.

While the challenges of controlling charge transfer between solids and water from the molecular to device scale and achieving near 100 percent efficiency remain unresolved, the team, supported by DOE, is determined to find solutions.

“Today’s awards provide our Energy Innovation Hub teams with the tools and resources to solve some of the most challenging science problems that are limiting our ability to decarbonize transportation and incorporate clean energy into the electricity grid,” said Harriet Kung, DOE’s Acting Director for the Office of Science, in a statement .

An example of an aqueous battery widely used for decades is the lead-acid battery used to start combustion engines in conventional automobiles. Even though lead-acid car batteries can momentarily provide a surge of electricity to start your automobile, they do not have a large energy capacity.

Moreover, they contain hazardous lead. Lead-acid batteries use 85 percent of the lead produced worldwide. Researchers highlight that while lead from recovered batteries is used in most new batteries, the recycling process in many countries uses methods that harm human health and the environment.

According to a 2020 UNICEF report, one in three children worldwide suffers from lead poisoning, with developing nations bearing the brunt of this suffering. “We hope our inventions may someday benefit all of humanity,” said Cui.

Eco-friendly innovation

The current research project aims to create a new class of aqueous batteries that are safer for the environment, more energy-dense than lead-acid batteries and only cost 10 percent of what lithium-ion batteries do now.

The team intends to use less expensive raw materials, more straightforward electronics, and innovative, effective production processes to keep the cost of this future technology low. It is also anticipated that the technology being explored will result in safer batteries with faster charging and discharging times.

Developers have faced long-standing challenges in creating new aqueous batteries due to persistent issues like low voltage, low energy density, material corrosion, undesirable side reactions, and early cell failure after limited charge-discharge cycles under demanding conditions.

The Aqueous Battery Consortium team comprises 31 top battery scientists, engineers, and physicists from 12 North American universities, SLAC, the US Army Research Lab, and the US Naval Research Lab. The team is organized into six Aims teams and three Crosscutting Theme teams.

According to the researchers, the Aims teams focus on the electrolyte , electrodes, electrolyte/electrode interface, corrosion, and device architecture, while the Crosscutting Theme teams address materials design, theory and simulation, and prototype characterization, ensuring collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches across the project.

“The Aqueous Battery Consortium is dedicated to doing the scientific research that will enable large-scale deployment of aqueous batteries,” said Steve Eglash, director of the Applied Energy Division and interim chief research officer at SLAC.