ChemistryNL Times: The holy grail of batteries has finally been found

23 November 2050

The engineers who started in 1964 with the construction of 6,000 kilometers of natural gas pipes to open up Groningen’s natural gas will not have imagined that this network would be used a century later for the distribution of green energy.

The energy surplus from sun and wind that private individuals generate with their solar panels in the summer will no longer be fed into the grid in 2050, but will be collected in megawatt batteries in transformer stations in the residential areas. When the batteries are full, they convert the energy through electrolysis into hydrogen that ends up with the chemical industry via the natural gas network. The chemistry then converts the hydrogen into ammonia for storage in large tanks. In winter, when the yield of energy from the sun and wind is insufficient, the ammonia is partially or partially cracked into nitrogen and hydrogen, which is burned CO2 and nitrogen-free in power stations to generate electricity.

Battolyser
‘It could hardly be more efficient,’ says Fokko Mulder, professor of energy storage materials and methods at TU Delft in the 20s. Given the expected increase at the time of a fluctuating and varying supply of electricity from solar and wind farms and private individuals, flexible and small-scale production of ammonia was also required in addition to large-scale energy storage. The development of the so-called Battolyser, a nickel-iron battery and electrolyser, offered a solution here. Battolyser, initiated by Mulder and his group and TU Delft spin-off Battolyser Systems, charges and then produces hydrogen, making the device suitable for both short-term energy storage and seasonal storage.

At the time, the Battolyser was one of the many efforts made by science and industry at home and abroad to optimize battery technologies. Moniek Tromp, professor of sustainable energy storage at the time, states that it was about increasing energy storage, extending the lifespan and replacing environmentally polluting or scarce raw materials with environmentally friendly and widely available components. For years, lithium-sodium batteries were the frontrunner for cars, laptops and telephones, among other things, because of their high cell potential. However, long-term storage caused problems with safety and energy loss, and the availability of lithium was also problematic. Then there was the widely used iron-nickel battery, based on cheap and readily available materials, but it was not very efficient.

Nickel-iron-sulphur battery
In the 20s, work was done on the development of a nickel-iron-sulphur battery whose energy, lifespan, efficiency and price were not inferior to the existing lithium batteries. In a further development, they succeeded in developing the cheaper nickel-free variant, since nickel in batteries was the price-determining factor. The nickel-free battery variant contained only iron and carbon and used air. This turned out to be more environmentally friendly, safer and cheaper than the standard batteries. When all mining and metal production became possible entirely with sustainable energy and CO2 emission-free, the environmental impact of these technologies was reduced even further, says Moniek Tromp.

“For an environmentally friendly, safe and affordable battery for the storage of electricity in the home, the iron-air battery has been the holy grail of development and further development in recent decades. The technology of this battery turned out to be working in the lab by 2025, but after that it took a long time to increase the efficiency of the air electrode. In the end, we succeeded and mass production could start in the late 30s.”

Text: Henk Engelenburg

This article is part of our ChemistryNL Times. These articles contain stories about the research and mission-driven innovations of today, with a look ahead to 2050.