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New long-duration, extended capacity Na-Al battery design for grid storage

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The new battery design could help ease integration of renewable energy into the electrical grid at lower cost, using Earth-abundant metals, according to a study just published in Energy Storage Materials. The new sodium-based molten salt battery uses two distinct reactions. Resources J. —Weller et al. Weller et al.

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ARPA-E to award $27M for advanced nuclear reactor systems operational technology: GEMINA

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These projects will work to develop digital twin technology to reduce O&M costs in the next generation of nuclear power plants. Advanced nuclear reactors have the potential to provide reliable and low-cost clean power to millions of American homes.

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Researchers propose new aluminum–sulfur battery with molten-salt electrolyte; low-cost, rechargeable, fire-resistant, recyclable

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An international team of researchers led by Quanguan Pang at Peking University and Donald Sadoway at MIT reports a bidirectional, rapidly charging aluminum–chalcogen battery operating with a molten-salt electrolyte composed of NaCl–KCl–AlCl 3. —Pang et al. Nature 608, 704–711 doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04983-9.

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PNNL: single-crystal nickel-rich cathode holds promise for next-generation Li-ion batteries

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Nickel offers relatively low cost, wide availability and low toxicity compared to other key battery materials, such as cobalt. The PNNL researchers have developed a process to grow high-performance crystals in molten salts—sodium chloride, common table salt—at high temperature.

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Convert Oil Wells to Solve the Solar Storage Problem

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The idea, says Daniel Codd , a researcher in renewable energy systems at the University of California, San Diego, is to store solar-produced heat in rock formations below the surface, creating a solar-charged geothermal resource in which heat is stored for meaningful durations. But we can still reduce the carbon [cost] of that oil.”

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Stanford team devises new bio-inspired strategy for using CO2 to produce multi-carbon compounds such as plastics and fuels

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In the paper in Nature they showed that intermediate-temperature (200 to 350 ˚C) molten salts containing caesium or potassium cations enable carbonate ions (CO 3 2– ) to deprotonate very weakly acidic C–H bonds, generating carbon-centered nucleophiles that react with CO 2 to form carboxylates. —Banerjee et al.

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DOE awarding >$24M to 77 projects through Technology Commercialization Fund

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Low Cost Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing of Reusable Sorbents for Energy and Water Industries, $150,000 Qualification of SAS4A/SASSYS-1 for Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Authorization and Licensing, $674,484 Advanced Reactor Concepts LLC, Chevy Chase, Md. Touchstone Research Laboratory, Triadelphia, W. El Centro, Calif. Louisville, Colo.