UNSW proton battery could store at grid scale

An eco-friendly, high-performance organic battery is being developed by scientists at UNSW Sydney.

A team of scientists at UNSW Chemistry have successfully developed an organic material that is able to store protons, and used it to create a rechargeable proton battery in the lab.

By leveraging hydrogen ions – protons – instead of traditional lithium, these batteries hold promise for addressing resource scarcity, environmental impact, safety and cost.

The latest findings, recently published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, highlight the battery’s ability to store energy quickly, last longer, and perform well under sub-zero conditions.

The material – tetraamino-benzoquinone (TABQ) – developed by PhD candidate Sicheng Wu and Professor Chuan Zhao, in collaboration with UNSW Engineering and ANSTO, has been shown to support rapid proton movement using hydrogen-bond networks.

Professor Zhao said: “We have developed a novel, high-capacity small-molecule material for proton storage.

“Using this material, we successfully built an all-organic proton battery that is effective at both room temperature and sub-zero freezing temperatures.”

The researchers said tests of the battery were ‘extremely promising’.

Combined with a TCBQ cathode, the all-organic battery offers long cycle life (3,500 cycles of fully charging, and then fully draining the battery), high capacity, and good performance in cold conditions, making it a promising step for renewable energy storage.

Professor Zhao said: “The electrolyte in a lithium-ion battery is made of lithium salt, a solvent which is flammable and therefore is a big concern.

“In our case, we have both electrodes made of organic molecules, and in between we have the water solution, making our prototype battery lightweight, safe and affordable.”

Researcher Wu said that at the moment, we don’t have any suitable solutions to grid-scale energy storage, because we can’t use tons of lithium batteries to do that job, due to the price and lack of safety.

“To enhance the usage of renewable energies, we have to develop some more efficient energy integration technologies and our proton battery design is a promising trial,” Wu said.

Picture: Professor Chuan Zhao