The new innovation evolved by Joshuna Gallaway, an assistant professor in the department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University, is an attempt to power an entire home, off the power grid. Today, people’s outlook is to have batteries that have long lifecycles, produce high energy and is affordable. With the climatic change, the demand of the hour is to shift our energy resource from fossil fuels to renewable energy. However, renewable energy presently lacks substantial outcome for storing harvested energy and re-deploying it to meet the demands of people when the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing.
The demand and supply of consumers are imbalanced. The sun might fulfil the grid’s requirement in the morning, but in the evening and in the night, when the sunsets, the demand will be the same. As a consequence, it cannot meet the demands of the people. Although, there are three types of batteries that people utilize. The lithium-ion battery can meet small scale demands or applications, like mobile phones, tablets, etc., and is effective. However, it can’t be worked out to meet the capacity of an entire wind turbine or solar panel energy.
Joshuna Gallaway says,” I don’t think it will be a big thing. I believe Lithium-ion batteries will never be widespread in your home or your building or the electrical grid, and that’s because they’re fundamentally not safe enough.”
Other batteries include zinc alkaline batteries like Duracell batteries that are utilized in small appliances and lead-acid batteries that are primarily used in cars to turn on the engine. All those batteries are beneficial but are not perfect for the storage of renewable energy. Aqueous batteries that are usually used in India are a lead-acid type of battery, which is water-based and inherently safer. To work effectively it has to be large enough which can’t work in many western countries.
The whole scenario is to make batteries that are adaptable with the seasonal storing of renewable energy sources and also affordable. A grid that will entirely rely on solar or wind needs to be ready to meet demands at times when they aren’t accessible and they should also store surplus energy when they are providing more electricity than needed. The battery’s ability to hold electricity depends on the materials the battery is made of. Joshuna Gallaway and other scientists are working on increasing progressive tools like state-of-the-art electron microscopy and ultra-modern synchrotron particle accelerated facilities. He is using this technology to see molecular structures, with the hopes of comprehending materials more fully and discover new battery that can satisfy all requirements.
Shweta Tripathi
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