The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

[LP]

Vanadium redox flow batteries can provide cheap, large-scale grid energy storage. Here's how they work, abc.net.au.

A New ‘Glue’ Could Make Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Cheaper—And Less Toxic, Forbes.

Good links.

It's not lost on me and it's quite bizarre that it takes a foreign investor to gain any traction on an Australia invention, I see it happen over and over again, locals get zero interest from the Feds or local Venture Capitalists, so the ideas get sold off to foreigners who commercialise it making a killing.

Flow batteries are a very serious option for buildings and homes, and should be receiving far more attention than Elon Musks rare element highly marketed and expensive(read profitable) alternatives. I read a while back that the basic installation hardware is everlasting in a flow battery and doesn't wear out, and you can change the electrodes and electrolyte as easy as Fish'n'Chip shop changes oil.

(Personally, I think LAVO is the way to go for homes and domestic vehicle charging, anyone old enough to remember The Heater man knows why!)

The lithium battery glue although a great idea is a trivial issue, the big problem for lithium ion isn't breaking the batteries down physically, it's reprocessing the ingredients that have become oxides or carbides. FWIW, the very same is now being done for cellphone assemblies, the glue can be "programmed to fall apart" under the right conditions. But let's not get too excited about the glue, and using sodium hydroxide to trigger the laminate to crumble isn't really an environmentally sweet solution to the problem, but it'll be easier and cheaper because it's basically paint stripper something that is already mass produced very very cheaply, but not so easy to dispose of in bulk!