PNNL
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Flow-Battery Test System Uses Sub-Scale Prototyping to Accelerate Energy Storage Research

Feb. 27, 2025
A tiny flow battery delivers outsized benefits, reducing time, cost, and resources needed for testing new battery materials

What you’ll learn:

  • Flow-style batteries are demonstrating the potential to dramatically cut the cost of energy storage.
  • A rapid prototyping and test system developed by Pacific Northwest National Labs uses a standardized “mini-flow cell” to reduce the amounts of time and materials required to evaluate new battery materials and processes.

 

Flow-stye battery architectures already show great potential for use in low-cost, long-lived utility-scale energy storage systems. Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) are accelerating their commercialization with a rapid prototyping system that enables them to quickly evaluate promising new materials, processes, and technologies for flow-style batteries using compact, low-cost “mini flow cells.”

According to PNNL, the redesigned mini flow cell closely mimics the internal structure of a traditional flow cell, scaled down by a factor of 5. But, despite its smaller size, the mini flow cell exhibits comparable performance to its larger counterpart. As a result, the new battery test system takes less time to make and requires an order of magnitude less starting material. Still, it produces the same quality of data offered by standard lab-scale test systems.

By reducing the amount of material needed and speeding up the validation process, this technology could help advance renewable energy solutions. Researchers also believe this miniaturized approach will facilitate experimentation with a broader range of experimental chemistries.

Check out the feature article on PNNL’s mini-flow test system here.

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About the Author

Lee Goldberg | Contributing Editor

Lee Goldberg is a self-identified “Recovering Engineer,” Maker/Hacker, Green-Tech Maven, Aviator, Gadfly, and Geek Dad. He spent the first 18 years of his career helping design microprocessors, embedded systems, renewable energy applications, and the occasional interplanetary spacecraft. After trading his ‘scope and soldering iron for a keyboard and a second career as a tech journalist, he’s spent the next two decades at several print and online engineering publications.

Lee’s current focus is power electronics, especially the technologies involved with energy efficiency, energy management, and renewable energy. This dovetails with his coverage of sustainable technologies and various environmental and social issues within the engineering community that he began in 1996. Lee also covers 3D printers, open-source hardware, and other Maker/Hacker technologies.

Lee holds a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Thomas Edison College, and participated in a colloquium on technology, society, and the environment at Goddard College’s Institute for Social Ecology. His book, “Green Electronics/Green Bottom Line - A Commonsense Guide To Environmentally Responsible Engineering and Management,” was published by Newnes Press.

Lee, his wife Catherine, and his daughter Anwyn currently reside in the outskirts of Princeton N.J., where they masquerade as a typical suburban family.

Lee also writes the regular PowerBites series

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