Stanford University is working on a liquid battery that will store energy for the power grid. To do this, the team is developing new catalytic systems to produce isopropanol. They want to optimize storage methods for liquid fuels.
Robert Waymouth leads a team at Stanford that works on liquid organic hydrogen carriers (Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers, LOHCs).to store renewable energy. In itself, hydrogen as a fuel or for generating electricity is not new. The challenge is to preserve and transport it.
The possibilities of liquid batteries
To store electricity for the power grid, current batteries use so-called lithium-ion technologies. The same applies to smartphone and electric car batteries. But energy storage is so extensive that scientists are looking for complementary systems.
LOHCs seem to be a very promising solution. They work with catalysts and high temperatures to store and release hydrogen. The aim is for LOHCs to return the stored energy as usable fuel or electricity on a large scale.
“We are developing a new strategy for the selective conversion and long-term storage of electrical energy in liquid fuels,” said Waymouth. “We have also discovered a novel, selective catalytic system for storing electrical energy in a liquid fuel without producing gaseous hydrogen.”
The important work at Stanford
Waymouth’s team is also investigating isopropanol as components of systems for storing and releasing hydrogen energy. But making isopropanol produces hydrogen gas, and “you don’t want hydrogen gas in that process,” as Waymouth explains.
That’s why the scientists are researching a way to produce isopropanol directly from protons and electrons. Daniel Marron, lead author of the study, developed a special catalyst system that combines two protons and two electrons with acetone. In this way, they obtain the LOHC isopropanol selectively without generating hydrogen gas.
Cobaltocene is particularly valuable in the process. The relatively inexpensive organometallic compound has proven to be an efficient co-catalyst in the reaction because it donates protons and electrons directly to the iridium catalyst and does not release hydrogen gas.
Basic research for liquid batteries
Cobalt is already a common material for batteries. Based on the new findings regarding the properties of cobaltocene, other catalysts could be created for the process. At least that’s the hope at Stanford, as Waymouth points out:
If you have excess energy and there is no demand for it on the grid, you store it as isopropanol. When you need the energy, you can give it back as electricity. This is basic research, but we believe we have a new strategy for the selective storage of electrical energy in liquid fuels.
Ideally, LOHC systems improve energy storage for industry and the energy sector and/or for individual solar and wind farms.
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