CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts and San Leandro, California. A new start-up called Quino Energy is seeking to bring to market a grid-scale energy storage solution developed by Harvard researchers to promote wider adoption of renewable energy.
Currently, about 12% of electricity generated by utilities in the US comes from wind and solar power, which varies with daily weather patterns. In order for wind and solar to play a larger role in decarbonizing the grid while still reliably meeting consumer demand, grid operators are realizing the need to deploy energy storage systems that have not yet proven cost-effective on a large scale.
Innovative redox flow batteries currently under commercial development could help tip the balance in their favor. The flow battery uses an aqueous organic electrolyte and Harvard materials scientists led by Michael Aziz and Roy Gordon of the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Chemistry, Chemist Development and Chemical Biology. Harvard Office of Technology Development (OTD) has granted Quino Energy an exclusive worldwide license to commercialize energy storage systems using laboratory-identified chemicals, including quinone or hydroquinone compounds as active materials in electrolytes. Quino’s founders believe the system can offer revolutionary benefits in terms of cost, security, stability and power.
“The cost of wind and solar power has fallen so much that the biggest barrier to getting the most power from these renewable sources is their intermittency. A secure, scalable and cost-effective storage medium can solve this problem,” said Aziz, director of Gene. and Tracy Sykes, Professor of Materials and Energy Technology at Harvard SEAS University and Associate Professor at the Harvard Environmental Center. He is the co-founder of Quino Energy and serves on its scientific advisory board. “In terms of grid-scale fixed storage, you want your city to operate at night with no wind without burning fossil fuels. Under typical weather conditions, you can get two or three days and you will definitely get eight hours without sunlight, so a discharge duration of 5 to 20 hours at rated power can be very useful. This is the best option for flow batteries, and we believe they are comparable to short-term lithium-ion batteries, more competitive.”
“Long-term grid and microgrid storage is a huge and growing opportunity, especially in California where we are demonstrating our prototype,” said Dr. Eugene Beh, co-founder and CEO of Quino Energy. Born in Singapore, Beh received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard University in 2009 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University, returning to Harvard as a research fellow from 2015 to 2017.
The Harvard team’s organic water-soluble implementation may offer a more affordable and practical approach than other flow batteries that rely on expensive, limited-scalable mined metals such as vanadium. In addition to Gordon and Aziz, 16 inventors apply their knowledge of materials science and chemical synthesis to identify, create and test molecular families with suitable energy density, solubility, stability and synthetic cost. Most recently at Nature Chemistry in June 2022, they demonstrated a complete flow battery system that overcomes the tendency of these anthraquinone molecules to degrade over time. By applying random voltage pulses to the system, they were able to electrochemically rearrange the energy-carrying molecules, greatly extending the life of the system and thus reducing its overall cost.
“We designed and redesigned versions of these chemicals with long-term stability in mind — meaning we tried to outperform them in a variety of ways,” said Gordon, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, emeritus retiree. who is also Quino’s scientific advisor. “Our students have been working very hard to identify molecules that can withstand the conditions they encounter in batteries in various states. Based on our findings, we are optimistic that flow batteries filled with cheap and common cells can meet the future demand needs for improved energy storage.”
In addition to being selected for full-time participation in the 2022 Harvard Climate Entrepreneurship Circle, the Berkeley Haas Cleantech IPO program, and the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Acceleration Program (named one of the most promising energy technology startups), Quino has also been recognized by the Ministry of The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has selected $4.58 million in non-dilutive funding from the Department of Energy’s Office of Advanced Manufacturing, which will support the company’s development of scalable, continuous, and cost-effective synthetic process chemicals for organic water flow batteries.
Beh added: “We are grateful to the Department of Energy for its generous support. The process under discussion could allow Quino to create high-performance flow battery reagents from raw materials using electrochemical reactions that can take place within the flow battery itself. If we are successful, without the need for a chemical plant — essentially , the flow battery is the plant itself – we believe this will provide the low manufacturing costs required for commercial success.”
By investing in new technologies, the US Department of Energy aims to reduce the cost of grid-scale long-term energy storage by 90 percent over a decade compared to lithium-ion benchmarks. The subcontracted portion of the DOE award will support further research to innovate Harvard’s flow battery chemistry.
“Quino Energy long-term energy storage solutions provide important tools for policy makers and grid operators as we strive to achieve the dual policy goal of increasing renewable energy penetration while maintaining grid reliability,” said former Texas Public Utilities Commissioner and current CEO Brett Perlman. Houston Future Center.
A US$4.58 million DOE grant was complemented by Quino’s recently closed seed round, which raised US$3.3 million from a group of investors led by ANRI, one of Tokyo’s most active early-stage venture capital firms. TechEnergy Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Techint Group’s energy transmission arm, also participated in the round.
In addition to Beh, Aziz and Gordon, the co-founder of Quino Energy is chemical engineer Dr. Maysam Bahari. He was a doctoral student at Harvard and is now the company’s CTO.
Joseph Santo, chief investment officer of Arevon Energy and adviser to Quino Energy, said: “The electricity market is in desperate need of low-cost long-term storage to mitigate volatility due to extreme weather across our grid and help integrate the widespread penetration of renewables.”
He continued: “Lithium-ion batteries are facing major hurdles such as supply chain difficulties, a fivefold increase in the cost of lithium carbonate compared to last year, and competitive demand from electric vehicle manufacturers. It is convincing that the Quino solution can be produced using off-the-shelf goods, and longer duration can be achieved.”
Academic research grants from the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory support innovations licensed to Quino Energy by Harvard Research. Aziz’s laboratory has also received experimental research funding in this area from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. As with all Harvard licensing agreements, the University reserves the right for nonprofit research institutions to continue to manufacture and use the licensed technology for research, education, and scientific purposes.
Quino Energy is a California-based cleantech company developing redox flow batteries for grid-scale energy storage based on innovative water-based organic chemistry. Quino is committed to developing affordable, reliable and completely non-combustible batteries to facilitate the wider adoption of intermittent renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. For more information visit https://quinoenergy.com. Inquiries should be directed to info@quinoenergy.com.
Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) promotes the public good by encouraging innovation and turning new Harvard inventions into useful products that benefit society. Our comprehensive approach to technology development includes sponsored research and corporate alliances, intellectual property management, and technology commercialization through risk creation and licensing. Over the past 5 years, more than 90 startups have commercialized Harvard technology, raising more than $4.5 billion in funding in total. To further bridge the academic-industry development gap, Harvard OTD manages the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Physical Sciences & Engineering Accelerator. To further bridge the academic-industry development gap, Harvard OTD manages the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Physical Sciences & Engineering Accelerator. To further bridge the gap in the development of the academic industry, Harvard OTD operates the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Physical Science and Engineering Accelerator. To further bridge the gap between academic and industry structures, Harvard OTD operates the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Physical Science and Engineering Accelerator. For more information visit https://otd.harvard.edu.
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Post time: Nov-07-2022
