In a new post on The Electrochemical Society’s redcat blog, Robert Kostecki, past chair of ECS’s Battery Division, talks about what’s next for batteries.

For Kostecki, the future of battery technology lies in reexamining past technologies with today’s tools. Advances in equipment and materials may mean that a technology ruled irrelevant in the past could be viable now with the aid of today’s more sophisticated technology.

I couldn’t agree more. What he’s specifically talking about here is revisiting battery strategies that have been previously deemed not viable, such as multivalent ion, lithium metal anodes, lithium-air, etc. All those are undeniably important, but here at the CUNY Energy Institute we’ve also been re-assessing aqueous batteries. The reason for this is because they’re uniquely suited for an emerging market need: stationary grid-level batteries.

Specifically, we’ve used modern techniques to bring new understanding to the phase transformations thought to make MnO₂ cathodes non-rechargeable. And in doing this, we’ve also figured out novel ways to cross those phase transformations reversibly. Some new papers are due out from us in the new year. Stay tuned.