I don’t usually write pieces in this blog that are not directly related to signal integrity, but I recently saw a TED talk on battery storage technology that I think should get more visibility.

Prof Donald Sadoway, from MIT, presented a talk on “The Missing Link to Renewable Energy.” Of course, he says, what’s needed for large scale power production from wind and solar and wave and other renewable sources, is a cost effective, scalable and efficient way of storing the energy for later use.

Prof Sadoway developed a radically different “liquid metal” battery technology. It’s based on Magnesium as the top, negative electrode, Antimony as the bottom, positive electrode and a magnesium chloride salt as the electrolyte.

What’s unusual about this battery is that these ingredients are heated to their melting point, 700 deg C, and their density difference naturally separates them into three different components.  There is no assembly, no moving parts. It’s just a battery during the discharge cycle and an energy storage device during the charging cycle.

Sadoway suggests this battery technology is scalable and provides a high energy density, efficient way of storing large amounts of energy to distribute to the power grid. He and MIT colleagues created a separate company to commercialize this new technology, LMBC.

In addition to his research, he is an engaging professor. Last year, I sat in on his Introduction to Solid State Chemistry class through MIT’s Open CourseWare program.