Flow Aluminum hits milestone during battery test

Flow Aluminum earlier this month announced it reached a major milestone in its efforts to create new and more efficient batteries.

Last week, the CEO of the company took the prototype to Dubai for demonstrations before possible investors.

Flow Aluminum, an Albuquerque-based startup, is working to create a battery that uses aluminum and carbon dioxide, as opposed to the standard practice of using lithium. Olaf Conrad, the chief scientific officer at Flow Aluminum, said the company recently created a prototype, called a pouch cell, that demonstrated the science behind the company's foundation can work in an engineered product.

"We're developing a better chemistry that uses aluminum as a metal and CO2 as a gas, and uses those to store electricity and release electricity in batteries," he said.

Conrad, who has a doctoral degree in chemistry, spent his career working across the globe developing catalysts for fuel cells. He ended up in Albuquerque working for Pajarito Powder before starting at Flow Aluminum in June.

"They're all technologies that use science for energy storage or conversion," he said. "If I work in batteries, I can work with fuel cells, I can work with electrolyzers, I can work with super capacitors. They're all the same science."

Conrad said there are three main reasons to use aluminum over lithium in batteries.

Aluminum and CO2 are prevalent all over the world. Lithium, on the other hand, is scarce and needs to be mined in specific areas, which makes for long supply chains.

Additionally, lithium batteries are prone to fire and aluminum doesn't carry the same risk.

The third reason is that aluminum is much cheaper than lithium.

Several worldwide trends are driving the effort to improve batteries and make them cheaper.

"The first important one is that we are still increasing the overall energy demand that the world requires every year," Conrad said. "We need more energy than the year before, but we at the same time want to reduce emissions associated with generating energy."

Renewable energy comes with challenges.

"It is only happening when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing," Conrad said. "You need the ability of the grid to provide energy even though the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. That's where batteries come in."

Conrad said the company is far from creating a commercial product.

"The first step is to take the science foundation and put it into a format that resembles a commercial product," he said.

Flow Aluminum created what it calls a pouch cell, which is an industry-accepted way to show that the science foundation and chemistry of a company works in an engineered product.

The device is a square object with a bag attached to it that contains the CO2. Conrad said the goal of Flow Aluminum is to create a battery that almost resembles a scuba tank, which can then be stacked into a large cube.

The company has its eyes set on its next milestone. Conrad said Flow Aluminum has been invited by the military to demonstrate that the battery could work in arctic weather conditions. He said the company has been invited to Norway early next year to demonstrate if the battery could work in temperatures as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Flow Aluminum announced in July that Conrad was the company's new chief technology officer.

"His expertise in electrochemical materials and engineering to help meet collective CO2 emission goals, coupled with his personal mission to foster and educate the next generation of electrochemical scientists and engineers, make him a valuable addition to our company," CEO Thomas Chepucavage said in a statement.