Amorphous Si-B-N nanoparticles of uniform composition tunable over the entire range spanning pure Si3N4 to pure BN was synthesized through a simple homogeneous chemical reaction of the mixture of SiCl4 and BBr3 with Na in liquid ammonia. With these amorphous nanopowders, dense amorphous bulk material was obtained with SPS sintering at the temperature before the crystallization. The dense amorphous bulk of Si3B3N7 exhibited the highest value of hardness (8.8 GPa), flexural strength s (545 MPa), and fracture toughness KIC (10.6 MPa m1/2). These are significantly higher than those reported for other crystalline ceramics of the same composition and surpass those of the completely dense crystalline ceramics. The fully-dense amorphous bulk material exhibited excellent resistance to oxidation up to 1550 degrees C.

Lithium-bismuth bimetallic cells are amongst the best explored liquid metal batteries. A simple and fast quasi-one-dimensional cell voltage model for such devices is presented. The equilibrium cell potential is obtained from a complex two-dimensional fit of data drawn from multiple studies of equilibrium cell potential and rendered congruent with the phase diagram. Likewise, several analytical and fit functions for the ohmic potential drop across the electrolyte are provided for different battery geometries. Mass transport overpotentials originating from the alloying of Li into Bi are modelled by solving a diffusion equation, either analytically or numerically, and accounting for the volume change of the positive electrode. The applicability and limitations of the model are finally illustrated in three distinct experimental settings.

The global growth of wind energy markets offers opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, wind variability and intermittency (across multiple timescales) indicate that these energy resources must be carefully integrated into the power system to avoid mismatches with grid demand and associated grid reliability issues. At the same time, community concerns regarding the local installation of renewable energy and energy storage systems have already delayed or even halted the proposed projects. We propose a broadly defined, co-design approach that considers wind energy from a full social, technical, economic, and political viewpoint. Such a co-design can address the coupled inter-related challenges of cost, technology readiness, system integration, and societal considerations of acceptance, adoption, and equity. Such a successful design depends on the understanding of the needs of relevant communities, the regional grid infrastructure and its demand variability, local and global grid decarbonization targets, available land and resources for system siting, policy and political constraints for energy development, and the projected regional and global impact of these systems on the environment, jobs, and communities.

Recently,a disruptive idea was reported about the discovery of a new type of battery named Liquid Displacement Battery(LDB)comprising liquid metal electrodes and molten salt electrolyte.This cell fea-tured a novel concept of a porous electronically conductive faradaic membrane instead of the traditional ion-selective ceramic membrane.LDBs are attractive for stationary storage applications but need mitiga-tion against self-discharge.In the instant battery chemistry,Li|LiCl-PbCl2|Pb,reducing the diffusion coef-ficient of lead ions can be a way forward and a solution can be the addition of PbO to the electrolyte.The latter acts as a supplementary barrier and complements the function of the faradaic membrane.The remedial actions improved the cell's coulombic efficiency from 92％to 97％without affecting the voltage efficiency.In addition,the limiting current density of a 500 mAh cell increased from 575 to 831 mA cm-2 and the limiting power from 2.53 to 3.66 W.Finally,the effect of PbO on the impedance and polarization of the cell was also studied.

Although batteries fitted with a metal negative electrode are attractive for their higher energy density and lower complexity, the latter making them more easily recyclable, the threat of cell shorting by dendrites has stalled deployment of the technology 1 , 2 . Here we disclose a bidirectional, rapidly charging aluminium–chalcogen battery operating with a molten-salt electrolyte composed of NaCl–KCl–AlCl 3 . Formulated with high levels of AlCl 3 , these chloroaluminate melts contain catenated Al n Cl 3 n +1 – species, for example, Al 2 Cl 7 – , Al 3 Cl 10 – and Al 4 Cl 13 – , which with their Al–Cl–Al linkages confer facile Al 3+ desolvation kinetics resulting in high faradaic exchange currents, to form the foundation for high-rate charging of the battery. This chemistry is distinguished from other aluminium batteries in the choice of a positive elemental-chalcogen electrode as opposed to various low-capacity compound formulations 3 – 6 , and in the choice of a molten-salt electrolyte as opposed to room-temperature ionic liquids that induce high polarization 7 – 12 . We show that the multi-step conversion pathway between aluminium and chalcogen allows rapid charging at up to 200C, and the battery endures hundreds of cycles at very high charging rates without aluminium dendrite formation. Importantly for scalability, the cell-level cost of the aluminium–sulfur battery is projected to be less than one-sixth that of current lithium-ion technologies. Composed of earth-abundant elements that can be ethically sourced and operated at moderately elevated temperatures just above the boiling point of water, this chemistry has all the requisites of a low-cost, rechargeable, fire-resistant, recyclable battery.

A sustainable energy future is axiomatically an electric future whose realization depends in part upon electrochemical innovations. Two examples are stationary energy storage and carbon-free steelmaking. Grid-scale electricity storage not only treats the intermittency of renewable electric power generation (wind and solar) but also confers resilience to today’s grid. For example, the liquid metal battery provides colossal power capability on demand and long service lifetime at requisite low cost. In 2019, worldwide steel production, 1.869 billion tonnes, generated 9% of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions. As an example of novel approaches in this sector, molten oxide electrolysis represents an environmentally sound alternative to today’s carbon-intensive thermochemical process which produces an average 1.83 tonnes CO2 per tonne of steel. In the narratives of both of these emerging technologies, there are lessons more broadly applicable to innovation: pose the right question, engage young minds (not experts), establish a creative culture, and invent inventors.

As wind energy increases its global share of the electrical grid, the intermittency of wind becomes more problematic. To address the resulting mismatch between wind generation and grid demand, long-duration (day-long) low-cost energy storage is offered as a potential solution. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) storage is an obvious, well developed candidate, but it is currently too expensive for such long-duration applications. Liquid metal battery (LMB) storage offers large cost reductions and recent technology developments indicate it may be viable for MW-scale storage. Accordingly, we investigate co-locating and integrating LMB and Li-ion storage within the substructure of an offshore wind turbine. Integration allows the substructure to cost-effectively double as a storage container and allows for costly electrical farm-to-shore connections to be reduced to near the average power size (by reducing peak power). These benefits are compared to the costs for battery integration. Simulations show that line size can be reduced by 20% with 4 h of storage or by 40% with 12 h of storage, with negligible capacity factor losses. However, with 24 h of average power storage using LMB, no line size reduction provided the best overall net value of the turbine-storage system due to the ability to capture all available wind energy and profit from energy arbitrage and full capacity credit. In general, LMB integrated storage results in an increased relative value with current system costs. Projected technology trends indicate that these benefits will significantly improve and that integrated Li-ion storage will also become cost-effective.

Mass transfer is of paramount importance for an efficient operation of liquid metal batteries. We show for the first time that electrodynamically driven flow can indeed improve mixing of liquid electrodes, and reduces concentration polarisation substantially. Simulating the discharge of a realistic Li||Bi cell at 1 A/cm2, the corresponding overpotential reduces by up to 62%. Moreover, the formation of intermetallic phases is delayed, which improves capacity usage. Finally, we demonstrate that vertical magnetic fields – which are originating from external sources – change the flow structure entirely, and will homogenise the positive electrode even better.

The electrical potential in a battery jumps at each electrode-electrolyte interface. We present a model for computing three-dimensional current and potential distributions, which accounts for such internal voltage jumps. Within the framework of the finite volume method we discretize the Laplace and gradient operators such that they account for internal jump boundary conditions. After implementing a simple battery model in OpenFOAM we validate it using an analytical test case, and show its capabilities by simulating the current distribution and discharge curve of a Li‖Bi liquid metal battery.

Introduction: The indigenous resources of the Moon can be used to develop a Radio Astrophysical Observatory on the far side of the Moon. Based on available lunar resources a Radio Observatory located on the far side of the moon can be founded on the fabrication of a strip wire antenna or a dipole antenna array by thin film growth technology in the vacuum environment of the Moon. This can be accomplished by the deployment of a moderately-sized (~200kg) crawler/rover on the surface of the Moon with the capabilities of preparation of the lunar regolith for use as a substrate, evaporation of the conductive metals to fabricate dipole antenna arrays directly on the regolith surface of the Moon, or deposit strip wire antennas inside a lunar crater to simulate a parabolic focusing antenna. Further, a power generation and transmission system can be fabricated by the same crawler/rover to supply the antenna system with the required energy for operation. The raw materials for the lunar fabrication process would be extracted from the lunar regolith by molten oxide electrolysis and supplied to the crawler/rover for deposition. The direct fabrication of a Lunar Radio Observatory on the Moon would result in the transportation of a much smaller mass of equipment to the Moon than would otherwise be required for the transport and installation of a terrestrially fabricated microwave antenna system including a power system. The fabrication of a microwave antenna system on the Moon from lunar resources would also result in an radio observatory architecture that was repairable/replaceable through the simple fabrication of more additional dipole antennas or wire, and that would yield various spin-off applications to foster an cis-lunar economy.

Crystalline-silicon solar cells have dominated the photovoltaics market for the past several decades. One of the long standing challenges is the large contribution of silicon wafer cost to the overall module cost. Here, we demonstrate a simple process for making high-purity solar-grade silicon films directly from silicon dioxide via a one-step electrodeposition process in molten salt for possible photovoltaic applications. High-purity silicon films can be deposited with tunable film thickness and doping type by varying the electrodeposition conditions. These electrodeposited silicon films show about 40 to 50% of photocurrent density of a commercial silicon wafer by photoelectrochemical measurements and the highest power conversion efficiency is 3.1% as a solar cell. Compared to the conventional manufacturing process for solar grade silicon wafer production, this approach greatly reduces the capital cost and energy consumption, providing a promising strategy for low-cost silicon solar cells production.

A borate decorated anion-immobilized solid polymer electrolyte effectively integrates high ionic conductivity, high Li+ transference number and reasonably mechanical integrity, enabling long-term cycling stability for dendrite-free lithium metal batteries.

An in-situ formed three-layered scale consisting of a Cu-rich layer and two oxide layers on the surface of Ni10Cu11Fe alloy enables an inert anode for oxygen evolution reaction in molten Na2CO3-K2CO3. The outermost layer is mostly NiFe2O4, the middle layer mainly consists of NiO, and the innermost is a Curich metal layer. The dense NiFe2O4 layer is resistant to molten salts and prevents O2- diffusing inwards, the middle NiO layer conducts electrons and functions as a buffer layer to increase the mechanical robustness of the whole scale, and the third copper-rich layer could help to slow down the oxidation rate of the alloy. This low-cost inert anode with a multi-layered scale is able to survive for more than 600 h in molten Na2CO3-K2CO3 electrolysis cell, generating O-2 and thereby enabling a carbon-free electro-metallurgical process. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the realm of stationary energy storage, a plurality of candidate chemistries continues to vie for acceptance, among them the Na–NiCl 2 displacement battery, which has eluded widespread adoption owing to the fragility of the β″-Al 2 O 3 membrane. Here we report a porous electronically conductive membrane, which achieves chemical selectivity by preferred faradaic reaction instead of by regulated ionic conduction. Fitted with a porous membrane of TiN, a displacement cell comprising a liquid Pb positive electrode, a liquid Li–Pb negative electrode and a molten-salt electrolyte of PbCl 2 dissolved in LiCl–KCl eutectic was cycled at a current density of 150 mA cm −2 at a temperature of 410 °C and exhibited a coulombic efficiency of 92% and a round-trip energy efficiency of 71%. As an indication of industrial scalability, we show comparable performance in a cell fitted with a faradaic membrane fashioned out of porous metal.

A battery system that exchanges energy with an external device is provided. The battery system includes a positive electrode having a first metal or alloy, a negative electrode having a second metal or alloy, and an electrolyte including a salt of the second metal or alloy. The positive electrode, the negative electrode, and the electrolyte are in a liquid phase at an operating temperature during at least one portion of operation. The positive electrode is entirely in a liquid phase in one charged state and includes a solid phase in another charged state. The solid phase of the positive electrode includes a solid intermetallic formed by the first and the second metals or alloys. Methods of storing electrical energy from an external circuit using such a battery system are also provided.