New Solar Battery Technology Offers Cheap Household Power
Salt Lake City-based company Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, has made what it believes to be a massive breakthrough in batteries for storing energy harnessed from the sun. The company is making impressive inroads on the prototype of a deep storage battery, the size of a small refrigerator, that safely operates at room temperature, consists of everyday materials, and can output household power at 2.5c per kWh. What’s more, Ceramatec says it will be cheap to purchase.
Currently, great performing energy-dense batteries are huge containers of super-hot molten sodium that hover around 600°C. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity, however, it is also toxic and corrosive. Instead, Ceramatec's battery comprises a large piece of solid sodium metal mated to a sulfur compound by a paper-thin ceramic membrane, called NaSICON. The membrane conducts ions - electrically-charged particles - back and forth to generate a current.
The company calculates that the battery will be able to sustain 20-40kWh of energy into a refrigerator-size housing that operates at around or below 90°C. This is possibly the only way that this type of dense battery technology will ever be approved for household use – safe, small (relatively) and cheap to purchase.
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Currently, great performing energy-dense batteries are huge containers of super-hot molten sodium that hover around 600°C. At that temperature the material is highly conductive of electricity, however, it is also toxic and corrosive. Instead, Ceramatec's battery comprises a large piece of solid sodium metal mated to a sulfur compound by a paper-thin ceramic membrane, called NaSICON. The membrane conducts ions - electrically-charged particles - back and forth to generate a current.
The company calculates that the battery will be able to sustain 20-40kWh of energy into a refrigerator-size housing that operates at around or below 90°C. This is possibly the only way that this type of dense battery technology will ever be approved for household use – safe, small (relatively) and cheap to purchase.
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Labels: batteries, economics, energy, solar
PermaLink - New Solar Battery Technology Offers Cheap Household Power
