Canadian mining company VanadiumCorp announced this week
that it has reached an agreement with a Dutch naval architect and a German
shipowner on the development and testing of a novel energy storage system for
shipboard use.
VanadiumCorp is the developer of a massive, high grade
vanadium ore prospect at Lac Doré, Quebec. The element's largest industrial use
is in the production of vanadium alloy steels, commonly used for tool steel and
other high-strength applications. But VanadiumCorp has another idea in mind: it
sees the Lac Doré deposit as a supply source for industrial-scale deployment of
the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) - a liquid electrolyte energy storage
system with few existing commercial installations.
The VRFB was developed in the 1980s, and it entails two
tanks of the same vanadium electrolyte solution in different oxidation states -
one higher, one lower. Pumps circulate both fluids past a membrane that allows
protons to pass between the two sides, facilitating electrical charging or
discharging of the cell. The energy storage capacity is limited only by the
size of the tanks.
While it has significant advantages in some stationary
applications - particularly grid storage and backup power - the VRFB's energy
density and full-cycle efficiency are lower than found in lithium-ion
batteries, and it has not historically been considered suitable for mobile
uses. In addition, while fully contained within the cell, the inorganic
vanadium compounds commonly used in a VRFB are considered toxic by OSHA.
VanadiumCorp believes it has a solution to the VRFB's energy
density shortcomings, and this would be key for the maritime sector.
Commonplace lithium-ion batteries are suitable for short ferry runs, but their
energy density is far too low for long-distance routes; the energy density of
existing VRFBs is even lower. The fix, VanadiumCorp believes, is a new vanadium
/ bromine chemistry, which the firm says has a much higher energy density than
existing vanadium / sulphuric acid VRFBs.
In December, the firm announced that the German-Australian
Alliance for Electrochemical Technologies for Storage of Renewable Energy
(CENELEST) has completed testing on this new electrolyte chemistry, and it said
that the results are promising. "A higher energy density V-Br electrolyte
and advancements in stack architecture could represent two to three times the
energy stored and made available by a conventional VRFB. The implications for
global sustainability and various industries transitioning to zero emissions is
a potential game-changer," the company said last month.