Something else new: Liquid batteries!:

http://www.physorg.com/news155569564.html

A new kind of battery using liquid metals and an electrolyte developed at MIT, could solve a number of solar energy problems and power grid problems. It's also a lot cheaper to manufacture and can take power inputs tens of times greater than regular batteries, even Lithium Ion types.

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://www.physorg.com/news155569564.html

A new kind of battery using liquid metals and an electrolyte developed at MIT, could solve a number of solar energy problems and power grid problems. It's also a lot cheaper to manufacture and can take power inputs tens of times greater than regular batteries, even Lithium Ion types.

This is interesting, but I can´t help wondering about the way they use molten magnesium and antimony. This generates some safety and environmental issues in my mind.

Originally posted by DeepThought
This is interesting, but I can´t help wondering about the way they use molten magnesium and antimony. This generates some safety and environmental issues in my mind.

Well steel mills handle liquid iron all the time and nobody much gets hurt, and there the stuff is poured into molds and stuff. These batteries would be closed containers, not much chance of explosion, I'm sure they would have containment vessels in case of a leak. Our ion implanters used Arsenic and Boron and Phosphorous and nobody but maybe me🙂 got poisoned by them. I'm sure if it was built in the US the safety dudes would be all over them to make sure they were satisfied a reasonably safe system was developed. I was wondering how much energy per Kg it would store, if it would beat say, lithium Ion batteries, maybe they could develop something for cars.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well steel mills handle liquid iron all the time and nobody much gets hurt, and there the stuff is poured into molds and stuff. These batteries would be closed containers, not much chance of explosion, I'm sure they would have containment vessels in case of a leak. Our ion implanters used Arsenic and Boron and Phosphorous and nobody but maybe me🙂 got pois ...[text shortened]... ore, if it would beat say, lithium Ion batteries, maybe they could develop something for cars.

It´s more what molten magnesium will do if it comes into contact with air or water. If it doesn´t ignite that´s ok., but magnesium´s pretty energetic when it gets going. They contain liquid sodium in fast breeder reactors but that´s in a well managed static environment (hopefully 😛). If you wanted to use one of these in a car you´d have to be pretty confident the container could withstand a crash or have water poured on it for a couple of years due to bad vehicle maintainance.

Originally posted by DeepThought
It´s more what molten magnesium will do if it comes into contact with air or water. If it doesn´t ignite that´s ok., but magnesium´s pretty energetic when it gets going. They contain liquid sodium in fast breeder reactors but that´s in a well managed static environment (hopefully 😛). If you wanted to use one of these in a car you´d have to be pretty ...[text shortened]... hstand a crash or have water poured on it for a couple of years due to bad vehicle maintainance.

The same can be said of hydrogen, now can't it?