Liquid Metal Battery, page 1

Ambri is commercializing a novel grid-scale electricity storage technology
invented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
»» LOW-COST: Ambri achieves low cost through the use of inexpensive, earth-abundant
materials, and a simple, easy-to-manufacture design that capitalizes on the economies of
scale inherent to electro-metallurgy.
»» EASY TO DEPLOY: Ambri’s liquid metal battery is emissions-free, operates silently, and
has no moving parts. As a result, it can be sited in the middle of the city or the middle
of the desert without special regulatory or permitting requirements.
»» FLEXIBLE: In the world of electricity storage, Ambri’s liquid metal battery performs
both like a tractor and a race car. It can respond to dispatch signals in milliseconds
— making it a great ancillary services resource — and it can store up to twelve
hours of charge — making it a great energy resource as well.
»» LONG LIFESPAN: Ambri’s all-liquid design avoids cycle-to-cycle capacity fade as the
electrodes are reconstituted with each charge through an alloying/de-alloying process.
This enables the battery to exceed 70% round-trip efficiency without degradation.

I had caught a clip of the guy who invented this named professor Donald Sadoway on of all places the Colbert Report and he seemed so out of place and awkward but also sounded very certain that this will change the world. I looked it up and it’s just a battery I thought until I caught on that the materials used are common abundant and cheap.

Wish I had some cash to invest but anyway. The availability of this means that solar, wind, and even extra energy that is being wasted from conventional plants can now is stored for peak needs. This is actually a huge development and I can’t wait to see how this impacts the future of power production.

I didn’t grasp all the technical jargon but here are the links I am interested in what everyone here thinks might come of this and what other aspects of life it has the potential to affect. Thanks.

www.ambri.com...
www.ambri.com...

Oh Bill Gates backed as well
gigaom.com...

Impact on climate

Why does this guy come to mind?

reply to post by BrianG

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That's so not funny. This is super serial. NYC has no power right now. That means, time square has no advertisements to promote the representation of our humanity!

reply to post by VoidHawk

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Yeah I am not sure what that is gaged on. Average load maybe.

Originally posted by Grimpachi
reply to post by VoidHawk

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Yeah I am not sure what that is gaged on. Average load maybe.

Doesn't tell us much though.



A couple other things that would be nice to know would be, chances of explosion... cost of materials. Antimony is primarily mined in China... like rare Earth metals.

There are some clues on the website though. It says cells are packed into refrigerator sized unit, then into a 40ft shipping container. Which will store 2MWh.

An electric car rated at 45m/100kWh will only get about 200 miles with a refrigerator's size worth of batteries in it.*

Depending on cost and longevity, this may still be better for electric cars, maybe not. It's not really the intended design given that they are looking at mobile 40ft containers to hold them. But it is something people are probably wondering about.

reply to post by boncho

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Exotic batteries? I just hope they invent a better electrical mouse trap before people decide that tiny combustion engines in all of our portable electronics is a good idea. Miniaturized moving parts? Heat? Peak oil?

Bad news, all the way across.

reply to post by boncho

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I think the whole point is that they do not need rare earth metals and are cheap to produce also I may be wrong but the longevity may be well above what is available.

Originally posted by Grimpachi
reply to post by boncho

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I think the whole point is that they do not need rare earth metals and are cheap to produce also I may be wrong but the longevity may be well above what is available.

Look at the diagram, the main ingredients are Salt, Magnesium and Antimony.

Antimony (Latin: stibium) is a toxic chemical element with symbol Sb and atomic number 51. A lustrous gray metalloid, it is found in nature mainly as the sulfide mineral stibnite (Sb2S3). Antimony compounds have been known since ancient times and were used for cosmetics; metallic antimony was also known, but it was erroneously identified as lead. It was established to be an element around the 17th century.

For some time, China has been the largest producer of antimony and its compounds, with most production coming from the Xikuangshan Mine in Hunan.

It's not classified as a "rare earth" I guess, but I wouldn't say it's abundant either:

The abundance of antimony in the Earth's crust is estimated at 0.2 to 0.5 parts per million, comparable to thallium at 0.5 parts per million and silver at 0.07 ppm.[8] Even though this element is not abundant, it is found in over 100 mineral species.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by boncho

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I couldn't find comaparable numbers to yours but I think lithium is harder to come by so a new tech should be useful.

The global lithium resource is estimated to be about 39 Mt (million tonnes)

Originally posted by Grimpachi
reply to post by boncho

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I couldn't find comaparable numbers to yours but I think lithium is harder to come by so a new tech should be useful.

The global lithium resource is estimated to be about 39 Mt (million tonnes)

I'm not saying it's not useful, or doesn't have potential, I was merely pointing out some areas that are a little cloudy, and also that some of the information leaves a bit out of the equation.

In any case, antimony seems to be far cheaper than lithium:

Lithium
Antimony

And the process they use to store energy is extremely cool. I would like to see this take off if it is feasible.

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