Organic Flow Battery: Better Than Thorium and Biofuel Combined | Global Awareness

Organic Flow Battery: Better Than Thorium and Biofuel Combined | Global Awareness

A cheap rechargeable battery that harnesses energy by using the electrochemistry of organic molecules rather than metals is being touted by Harvard researchers as a breakthrough for renewable energy.

The Harvard team reports that the battery, which they say can be applied on a power-grid scale, uses naturally abundant and small organic compounds called quinones rather than electrocatalysts from costly precious metals,such as platinum.

Quinones would be inexpensive to obtain and can be found in green plants or synthesized from crude oil. The battery designed by Harvard scientists and engineers used a quinone molecule that’s almost identical to one that’s found in rhubarb.