Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have developed an innovative 3D-printed battery, which they say could help make a big impact on the road to net zero. 

Dr Josh Bailey and Dr Hugh O’Connor from the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering say that there is “an uncomfortable reality” that we must face as a society – most of our lives are still powered by fossil fuels.

Dr Hugh O’Connor explained: “Tackling climate change is widely recognised as one of the major challenges facing modern society. In a bid to tackle it, governments across the UK and Ireland have set ambitious targets to reduce emissions and transition away from fossil fuels.

“However, the biggest challenge with renewable energy is simple – we cannot control when the sun shines or when the wind blows. The uncomfortable reality is that clean energy still only makes up a small share of our overall energy use – around just 16% in both the UK and Ireland.”

Until clean energy can be stored reliably and used whenever needed, fossil fuels will continue to dominate how power systems run.

The Queen’s researchers have now developed a 3D-printed battery, to help address the problem.

Dr Josh Bailey and Dr Hugh O'Connor are the scientists behind the research.

How can batteries help?

Many people look to lithium-ion batteries as a potential solution – the same technology found in mobile phones, laptops, and increasingly in cars.

These are effective at a small scale but are less suitable for longer-duration, grid-scale energy storage. They are more expensive to scale up than flow batteries and come with a greater fire hazard given their more flammable components.

There are also ethical risks associated with mining cobalt, which, until recently, was used in the majority of lithium-ion batteries.

The most commercialised flow battery technology uses a safer aqueous chemistry and relies on a different metallic element called vanadium. It is more abundant that lithium and no cobalt is required. However, vanadium is currently only produced in a few places around the world, linked to steelmaking, and is susceptible to large price swings.

The battery that Queen’s researchers are developing is instead based on iron, which is much easier to source. They’ve also sent their cell around the world to help standardise research – as this is also a major barrier to progressing innovation.

This could make flow batteries a potential game changer for large-scale renewable energy storage.

Dr Hugh O’Connor said: “As part of my PhD research, I realised how expensive it was to buy a flow battery cell – anything up to £3,000 – so I started 3D-printing them. After a lot of trial and error, eventually these started to work really well and I was able to create one for around £75.”

Moving research forward

However, there was a problem. Dr O’Connor said: “When I compared the results to other research, I realised that standards are not the same across different laboratories and nobody was getting the same results because we were all using our flow batteries differently.

"We were at various conferences and meetings and on calls, we noticed that other people were having the same problems, and lots of our colleagues were really interested in this work. For research to move forward, the way we use flow batteries needs to be standardised.

"All of a sudden, we were in this position where we had this really robust, cheap cell and we all wanted to tackle the same problem."

He created what he described as an 'Ikea-style' instruction manual and sent it around the world to other research groups.

Now, using the cell developed at Queen’s, scientists across the globe are working to understand the major differences across laboratories by performing nominally identical tests, with the same cell and following well-defined protocols.

Dr Bailey added: “It’s been fantastic to see that we’re already making global impact. By distributing the Queen’s cell around the world, we have been able to lead a large, international research study in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), bringing together more than 35 research groups from across the globe, including teams at Harvard (US) and Cambridge (UK).

“The work is helping to accelerate breakthroughs in long-duration energy storage, advance the transition away from fossil fuels, and firmly position our team at Queen’s as leading the development of clean, reliable energy technologies.”