Low cost, large-scale energy storage is the key to accelerating the renewable energy revolution, and now shrimp have been enlisted in the cause. The aim is to push down the cost of flow batteries by using bio-based materials such as shrimp shells. That would help ramp up the transition out of fossil fuels and into clean power, thus saving the planet in time to avert a climate catastrophe. Thank you, shrimp. Wait, what is a flow battery? The dream of low cost, high efficiency, long duration flow battery energy storage technology could rest on the back of tiny creatures such as this baby shrimp (photo via USDA). Shrimp (May) Be The Key to Energy Storage That Flows We’ll get to that flow battery thing in a minute. First let’s clarify the news about shrimp shells and energy storage, which has been zooming all over the Intertubes in recent days. The news involves research published in April at ACS Sustainable Chemical Engineering under the title, “ Exploration of Biomass-Derived Activated Carbons for Use in Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries .” The research team did not exactly determine that shrimp shells are the best bio-based material for flow batteries. What they did […]
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