Renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, come with their own downsides. For example, the wind doesn’t always blow, and cloudy days hinder solar panels. Scientists determined that new, larger batteries are the answer for storing extra energy.

While we mostly rely on lithium-ion batteries, the batteries themselves rely on potentially hazardous, flammable materials. Additionally, sometimes they can’t handle major storage systems.

A team led by University of Waterloo professor Dr. Maxime van der Heijden is working on a safer alternative. They’ve built a new 3D-printed electrode that makes a different kind of battery that reportedly works better.

Power Stored in Liquid

The team focused on redox flow batteries that use water-based electrolytes to store charge. Researchers explained that this makes them much safer for large-scale jobs, such as operating a power grid for an entire community.

“Instead of storing energy in solid materials, they store energy in liquid electrolytes held in external tanks,” said van der Heijden, a chemical engineering professor at Waterloo. “The amount of stored energy can be increased simply by using larger tanks, making them well-suited for large-scale renewable energy storage and grid applications.”

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Printing a Better Battery

Professor Maxime van der Heijden holding a 3D printed structure for better battery storage; Photo: University of Waterloo

To make these flow batteries work better, the liquid needs to move through them efficiently. According to the team, 3D printing is a solution to this. The researchers used a digital light-processing 3D printer to fabricate specialized carbon electrodes with complex, repeating shapes inspired by natural structures.

“With 3D printing, we can design the internal structure of an electrode in ways that are difficult to achieve using conventional manufacturing,” said van der Heijden. “That gives us much greater control over how the liquid moves through the battery and reaches the surfaces where the energy-storing reactions take place.”

They tested several shapes and found that a “diamond” design was the best option. The results showed that it boosted the battery’s performance by 52%. They proved this works by testing the 3D-printed parts in a real vanadium flow battery in the lab.