Why are there no flow batteries with symmetric ferrocyanide electrolytes?

22 pointsposted 5 hours ago
by DamonHD
(chemisting.com)

11 Comments

stuaxo

an hour ago

Cyanide batteries... hmm..

ambicapter

2 hours ago

Glad I finally have a name (flow battery) for a concept that I've been wanting to be made for a long time (liquid batteries).

somat

33 minutes ago

Flow batteries specifically are liquid, or more accurately fluid, there can be gas flow batteries, where the chemical sub-products are pumped in and out of the cells.

They tend to be large utility scale things that look like a chemical plant, correction, are a chemical plant with electrical storage as the product.

Liquid electrolyte batteries have been a thing from when batteries have been invented. But not much work has been done to really scale it up.

mshafir

3 hours ago

Thank you for this, as somebody with almost no background in chemistry, I can now appreciate just a bit more the complexity that goes into battery development. Where does one learn about this?

kakacik

3 hours ago

To give the answer its the cyanide part... which I knew already when looking at the title, without having much clue about underlying chemistry.

Good luck selling batteries full of some variant of cyanide to general public, i can almost imagine it working till people hear that keyword.

somat

an hour ago

The public is not going to buy a flow battery anyway.

Or perhaps they will, but only when public is taken in the context as in public utility or public city. But individuals are not going to buy a flow battery, it is a chemical plant.

psd1

an hour ago

Somewhat true, but consumers are buying vast quantities of lithium batteries and carrying them in their pockets. Those things are eager to catch fire and emit hydrofluoric acid.

You can have safe battery chemistry or useful battery chemistry. (Not an expert, open to correction.)

greenavocado

2 hours ago

There are plenty of battery customers besides the usual suspects