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Transitioning to renewable energy is an important challenge for society. Critical components in harnessing renewable energy (from the wind or the sun) include capturing and storing the energy so that it can be used at a later time and to ensure a continuous supply. Storing energy as it is generated ensures that power is available even when the energy isn’t being produced. As a result, energy storage has become one of the key challenges in transitioning to renewable energy.
Developing special chemical blends ideal for energy storage
ICL has developed special chemical blends required to create ‘flow batteries’ which are ideally suited for storing large amounts of energy. These batteries are contributing to efforts to solve the energy storage challenge. Due to bromine’s high abundance and rapid kinetics, bromine-based batteries offer superior performance and potentially a cost-effective solution, positioning this technology as a preferred method of energy storage. For more information, visit our dedicated Energy Storage site.
Bromine–based flow batteries experience minimal loss of storage capacity over their lifetime.
ICL is geared towards working with startups, helping to fine-tune chemical blends needed for various energy storage technologies.
By creating these special chemical blends and recycling these chemicals, the Company assures that this technology is fully sustainable, in its post-use phase, as well. ICL’s innovative ‘energy storage’ services provide complete chemical support for producers of bromine based ‘flow batteries’. To read a Safety Review of Bromine Based Electrolytes for Energy Storage Applications, click here.
ICL is experimenting with a unique technology for bromine-based energy storage. In its R&D site in Beer Sheva, ICL has set up photovoltaic panels for electricity production, two zinc-bromine flow batteries and an energy management system.
The batteries (Z-Cell) are charged by the solar panels during the day and are discharged based on the needs of the facility. The core of the system are the batteries which enable energy storage. The energy is used when needed and not necessarily when it is produced, the way most solar systems currently operate.
The batteries installed were made by REDFLOW, an Australian company with whom ICL is working. The zinc-bromine electrolyte solution was developed at ICL’s R&D Labs in Beer Sheva, produced in ICL’s facilities in the Netherlands (IP Terneuzen) and is used in REDFLOWS’s batteries that are produced in Thailand. Dozens of the company’s batteries are being used in farms, energy storage facilities in Australia and South Africa and more.
As the pilot phase concludes successfully, ICL will be looking to expand the use of the batteries and to test other scenarios and use cases.
The Flow Battery Solution
A flow battery is an electrical storage device that is a cross between a conventional battery and a fuel cell. Liquid electrolyte of metallic salts is pumped through a core that consists of positive and negative electrodes, which are separated by a membrane. The ion exchange that occurs between the cathode and anode generates electricity.
Thomas Maschmeyer, professor of chemistry at the University of Sydney, invented a ground-breaking zinc-bromide gel battery that won this year’s Australian Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation.
This unique battery (based on ICL’s electrolytes) is designed to make renewable energy cheaper, safer and deployable.
Exciting breakthrough by ICL’s partner Gelion and fantastic news for zinc-bromide batteries.
The energy storage technology uses a solution known as zinc-bromide gels...It is able to run at high temperatures in a largely unmanaged system – a solution particularly relevant to off-grid challenges in Australian agriculture, mining and remote communities.”
Professor Thomas Maschmeyer
