Stanford scientists have developed a new battery that could provide a cheap way to store wind or solar energy. In the journal -Natural Energy – prototype manganese-hydrogen battery, is described as which stands just three inches tall and generates a mere 20 milliwatt hours of electricity, which is on par with the energy levels of LED flashlights one might hang on a key ring.
They are confident they can take this table-top technology up to an industrial-grade system that could charge and recharge up to 10,000 times, creating a grid-scale battery with a useful lifespan well in excess of a decade. According to them, they have added a special salt into water, dropped in an electrode, and created a reversible chemical reaction that stores electrons in the form of hydrogen gas. They also know how to reproduce electricity from the energy stored in hydrogen gas.
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