New aqueous-flow battery uses organic material

MIT Technology Review : To make intermittent energy sources, such as solar and wind, more economically viable, a high-performance, yet inexpensive, storage device is needed. Researchers at Harvard University have been developing such a device based on the flow battery, which works by pushing an electrolyte back and forth through a membrane. Traditional flow batteries use vanadium, an expensive metal. By replacing it with an organic molecule, quinone, which is found naturally in plants and can be cheaply synthesized, the researchers could match the performance of traditional flow batteries but at significantly lower cost. And because quinones are easily modified, improving their performance could reduce costs even further. Now the researchers are testing quinones for durability, since electric utilities require batteries that can hold up over decades of use.