(Invited) Iron Flow Battery with Slurry Electrode for Large Scale Energy Storage: Scale-up, Commercialization, and IP Challenges in an Academic Environment

Abstract

Large-scale energy storage is required to meet a multitude of current energy challenges. These challenges include modernizing the grid, incorporating intermittent renewable energy sources (so as to dispatch continuous electrical energy), improving the efficiency of electricity transmission and distribution, and providing flexibility of storage independent of geographical and geological location.Through efforts supported by ARPA-E and the Department of Energy Office of Electricity, one technology we are developing utilizes an approach based on sustainable, low cost iron electrolytes in an iron flow battery (IFB). Advantages of the IFB include abundant, non-toxic, and non-corrosive materials that are used to provide an energy storage solution that has inherently safe operation and is environmentally friendly. In our approach to the all iron RFB, we introduced a flowing carbon slurry as the negative electrode as a substrate for plating iron during charging allowing storage of the plated iron in a tank external to the stack. This configuration decouples energy and power capacities. The work supported by DOE allowed us to address challenges encountered in scaling up from small laboratory cells to a large commercial size slurry IFB single cell. 1 In this presentation, we will address some of the challenges we encountered for demonstrating the technology within an academic environment in order to position it for commercial development. Even with funding to overcome the valley-of-death and technology-to-market assistance given by ARPA-E, we faced many challenges including hiring expertise to address scale-up, design and testing. We will discuss challenges faced with identifying partners and licensees for moving discovery to product. Also, we will describe the many types of interactions we had with the university Technology Transfer Office including patent disclosure, IP protection, and negotiating licenses. Acknowledgements: This research was supported by ARPA-E contract DE-AR0000352. Partial support also was received from the DOE Office of Electricity Award #1111358,0 under Dr. Imre Gyuk. 1N.S. Sinclair, R.F. Savinell and J.S. Wainright, MRS Energy & Sustainability, 2022; doi: 10.1557/s43581-022-00046-8