April 28th Terry Perles podcast While the whole interview is worth listening to, most of the first 14 minutes is spent discussing Terry's credentials, and Terry is a walking encyclopedia on the subject of vanadium.
The interview gets very interesting from the 14:00 min. mark.
We have recently been hearing about the use of vanadium in lithium-ion batteries and Terry talks about it at the 14:00 min. mark, and here's what he had to say:
14:20
"Lots of work going on right now with the use of vanadium as a cathode material in lithium-ion batteries, and the advantages vanadium can bring to lithium-ion is an increase in energy density, which means we can drive our car more km between charges, and a significant decrease in the recharge time. Some people are suggesting by an order of magnitude. These two factors are really what's holding EVs back to-day. Many people have been working on this for more than 15 years, and some companies are now starting to commercialize the technology.
So, the flow battery for grid level applications is where a lot of people are focussing their attention, but I would not discount the use of vanadium in lithium-ion systems for mobility applications as well.
15:20
"I'm gonna guess that there are approx. 130 VRFBs installed around the world.
22:00
6 months from now he sees a big demand for electrolite for the VRFBs. China all lit on the technology with Gov. support in a big way. He expects to see big demand coming from Southern California and Texas etc.
24:00 In Europe a company by the name of Portliner build ships that travel the Mediterranean and relatively short sea courses , and they are very supportive of flow battery tech.
He also discusses minigrids.
Press the green button to start the video and control time slider at the bottom of the page.
The following was copied from their website:
Go with the flow
PortLiner has identified flow batteries as a perfectly viable alternative for inland shipping, without the downsides of lithium-ion but with the upside of operational efficiency and competitive operational and investment cost.
In flow batteries, the electrical energy is stored in a liquid electrolyte (no pressure, ambient temperature) and converted in flow cells ("stacks") into electricity to feed into electro engines for propulsion. The "spent" electrolyte is subsequently recharged with electricity. The electrolyte can be used for almost indefinite time - there is hardly any degradation.
PortLiner, with partners, has developed a vessel design with flow battery technology, and a battery recharging infrastructure that meets operational requirements and is scalable, to serve multiple vessels.