Researchers Create Smaller, Cheaper Flow Batteries for Clean Energy

Existing flow battery technologies cost more than $200/kilowatt hour and are too expensive for practical application. The Lively and Liu labs developed a compact flow battery cell configuration that relies on hollow fibers for a sub-millimeter, bundled microtubular (SBMT) membrane.

The new design lowers membrane-to-membrane distance by 100 times, reduces the size of the cell by 75%, and ultimately decreases the size and cost of the entire flow battery. Read more in this news article, and check out the article in PNAS here.