Caustic soda batteries to solve the renewable energy problem?

One of the biggest challenges with wind or solar energy is finding a good way to store it. Lithium-ion batteries are too expensive and need frequent replacement, having a relatively rapid decay. One solution could be to store the energy in the form of thermal energy through molten salts, but until now similar solutions were only theoretical.

Seaborg, a small, next-generation nuclear startup based in Copenhagen, has discovered a better molten salt storage solution using sodium hydroxide, NaOH, otherwise known as caustic soda. Hydroxides can contain more heat per unit of salt than other formulations, making it more efficient and reducing the amount of salt needed. Then deriving from sodium chloride it is also easily producible.

“We can more than half the cost of storing thermal energy at one time. And that allows us to get to a stage where we think [our business] can be competitive without any subsidies, ”says Ask Emil Løvschall-Jensen, co-founder of Seaborg.

"If we filled a building the size of the Colosseum in Rome with salt and heated it to 700 degrees, we would actually be able to provide heat and electricity to the entire Italian population for 10 hours," says Løvschall-Jensen, even if you think of the Colosseum filled of caustic soda makes a bit of an impression.

The discovery came as an unexpected product of the work Seaborg was doing on creating small modular nuclear reactors. The startup was founded in 2014 to build compact nuclear reactors on barges, using salt as a component to make them safer than traditional nuclear power plants but also to store energy.

The problem with salt is that it is corrosive and wears out the steel pipes and tanks used to hold it. When heated to very high temperatures, the corrosion reactions are further accelerated. Sodium hydroxide is not generally used for molten salt nuclear reactors precisely because it is very corrosive, but Seaborg has developed a method to control this extremely dangerous feature.

The key element of the technology here is the chemical control that limits the corrosion of structural materials in contact with the molten salt, and this particular feature is the essential part of Seaborg's know-how. However, after the first phases related to nuclear power, they realized that their solution was optimal for storage linked to the fickle alternative energy sources and decided to create the subsidiary Hyme, with Løvschall-Jensen to develop this sector. The first demonstration plant for the storage of electrical energy by means of a heat exchanger should be up and running within 18 months.

The idea itself is very interesting, but it presents a problem: how much energy loss will be linked to the transformation of electrical energy into thermal energy and vice versa? All the efficiency of the project hinges on this physical aspect.

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The article Caustic soda batteries to solve the renewable energy problem? comes from ScenariEconomici.it .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/batterie-alla-soda-caustica-per-risolvere-il-problema-dellenergia-rinnovabile/ on Mon, 27 Dec 2021 18:16:32 +0000.