To sustain human civilization in the future, clean energy sources must be harnessed to replace the fossil fuels that are now polluting our atmosphere. Solar and wind energy can supply all the necessary energy. However, storage will be needed when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.
Organic flow batteries are a potentially safer, less expensive alternative to lithium ion batteries and vanadium flow batteries for large-scale renewable energy storage.
Now, Harvard researchers have demonstrated a new organic molecule that outlives and outperforms its predecessors, offering the longest-lasting high-performance organic flow battery to date. Nicknamed the Methuselah quinone -- after the longest-lived Biblical figure -- this molecule could usefully store and release energy many tens of thousands of times over multi-year periods.
The research is published in the journal Joule.
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