Molecular Engineering toward Highly Stable Redox Flow Batteries with High Energy Density

An increasing amount of renewable energy sources are being integrated into the electric grid in the US and around the world. However, as intermittent wind and solar begin to approach more than a quarter of grid energy production, significant energy storage technology must be employed as well to mitigate the unbalanced energy production and demand in the grid. To meet the emission targets in an economically viable manner, low-cost grid-scale energy storage technology must be developed. This talk will compare different battery technologies and describe our efforts in development of new generation of inexpensive redox active species for redox flow batteries (RFB) that can offer extraordinary energy density and cycling stability. This involves identification of critical needs for redox couple design in RFB and development of simplest yet effective synthetic routes towards redox active molecules with desired performance.