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Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,793

Nickel Iron battery units

Something that may be useful for grid energy storage in a high renewable scenario.  Whilst I am sceptical of the efficacy of such a scenario, as an engineer I cannot help but tinker with stuff and look for ways of making it work.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel% … on_battery

This battery tech has relatively low energy density and low charge-discharge efficiency; but NiFe batteries essentially last forever.  They tolerate continuous deep cycling without damage for decades on end - cycling that would degrade most other battery types within a few thousand charge cycles.  Many of Edison's original battery units still work today.  For stationary applications, low power density is less of a problem.

In a hybrid electric vehicle, nickel iron batteries would essentially last the lifetime of the vehicle and standardised units could be reused over and over again.  A hybrid needs only a small fraction of the battery capacity of a fully electric vehicle, making weight less of a problem.  But that battery capacity is used far more intensively - something that would a ruin a Li-ion battery quickly.

This would appear to be a very durable technology, based upon abundant and low embodied energy materials: iron, nickel oxide-hydroxide and potassium hydroxide.  It is a technology that faces no serious materials bottlenecks here on Earth and is therefore suitable for mass production.  On Mars, it should be relatively easy to make.

Storing large amounts of electricity in batteries for grid applications is very expensive.  But in this case, the problem can be tempered somewhat by the very long lifetime of the battery units.  In a low interest rate environment, this allows a higher purchase cost to be amortised over a very large number of stored kWh's over a very long operational lifetime, if batteries are carefully maintained.

Using the UK as an example: Baseload electricity consumption is about 30GW.  To store a whole day of electric power to cover deep lulls, we would need 720billionWh of battery capacity.  This would have an upfront capital cost of about $500bn.  That is a huge sum of money, but if we can produce a battery that lasts for fifty years, then the average cost per kWh stored may be quite modest.  Lets say that each kWh of battery capacity goes through one charge-discharge cycle every few days on average and cost is $100/kWh.  Over the course of a 50 year lifetime, the capital cost would $0.016 for each kWh stored.  Not too much at all.  Then again, anything with high capital costs looks good when interest rates are effectively zero.

According to Ironedison, these batteries have the lowest lifetime cost of ownership of any battery type used in off-grid applications.

https://ironedison.com/nickel-iron-ni-fe-battery

After I posted this, I realised that a similar idea was raised by Terraformer about a year back.
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8011

Last edited by Calliban (2020-02-09 07:57:50)

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"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Nickel Iron battery units

Yes the edison battery possibly one of the early insitu built products for mars. Plastics for the casing and smelting the surface to make plates, liquid potassium for the electrolyte and nickle plates to finish it off.

edit now 4 topics that meantion this:
Nonflammable electrolyte for high-performance potassium batteries

This novel electrolyte contained triethyl phosphate as the sole component of the solvent. This substance is known as a flame retardant. It has been tested in lithium-ion batteries, but only very high concentrations provided enough stability for long-term operation, too high for industrial applications.

The battery industry demands dilute electrolytes, which are cheaper and ensure better performances. They combined the phosphate solvent with a commonly available potassium salt and obtained an electrolyte that did not burn and allowed stable cycling of the assembled battery concentrations of 0.9 to 2 moles per liter, which are concentrations that are suitable for larger scales; for example, in smart-grid applications.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.201913174

Terraformer

Member

From: The Fortunate Isles

Registered: 2007-08-27

Posts: 3,906

Website

Re: Nickel Iron battery units

It is a technology that faces no serious materials bottlenecks here on Earth

Unless the Greenland ice sheet really is hiding a half mile wide Nickel-Iron meteor, we don't have anywhere near the amount of nickel required (which was why I think Sodium-Iron is worth looking at). Each kW-hr requires perhaps 5-10kg of nickel, and the world's reserves are an estimated 89 million tonnes. That would be enough for 18 perhaps TW-hrs, enough to keep the world going for around an hour. Of course, Luna has far more than we need for that... Greenland might also have enough, from an impactor that hit 12,800 years ago.

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Use what is abundant and build to last