Vanadium, Flow Batteries, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery

Humans worry about the darnedest things. Especially humans who live in developed nations.

Nomophobia or No-Mobile phone-phobia (1): Anxiety related to being cut off from use of their cell phones or the internet, which affects something like 50% of the population who use cell phones. (Go ahead. Leave your phone at home one day on purpose. See how you feel.)

Electrophobia, the morbid fear of electricity. After all, everything around us that makes our lives easy and convenient runs on electricity. Imagine having a problem flipping a light switch on in your home or charging phones and computers or turning on the TV to binge-watch a year of your favorite show.*

But there is one phobia that I’m surprised we don’t see more often: Nonamophobia (2), the fear of power outages or blackouts—the sudden loss of electric power. People can feel extreme panic, have difficulty coping with the uncertainty of when the power will come back on, and even avoid situations when and where power outages occur.

Nonamophobia shouldn’t be confused with nomophobia but could definitely be related if there’s a sudden blackout and the charge on your phone is in the red or you have a newsletter article due on Vanadium Flow Batteries that are used to store excess solar-powered energy created during the day so it can be used when the sun don’t shine and your internet isn’t working because of the blackout.

And there it is. Vanadium, abbreviation V, is our Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery element. One that isn’t well known but is EVERYWHERE. It’s used in steel alloys for added strength in girders for skyscrapers and tools. It’s mixed with gallium (3) to create superconducting magnets. Vanadium in different oxidation states is super colorful (we’ll come back to this), and it is used as a pigment in ceramics and a catalyst for making fabric dyes (4). It’s also in vanadium emeralds (5) and in smart windows that keep the heat in during winter and out during summer (6).

Vanadium

Vanadium, a hard, malleable transition metal in period 4, has an atomic number of 23 and an atomic weight of 50.942. It’s the 20th most abundant element—comparable to copper, iron, and zinc (7)—and occurs naturally in ~65 minerals but rarely as a pure metal, which made it difficult to “discover”. Its first claimant was a Spanish mineralogist, Andrés Manuel del Rio, in 1801, who named it panchromium (all colors) He then switched it to erythronium because heating the mineral turned it red but when del Rio sent his mineral sample to Europe for confirmation (due diligence peer review!), his letter with his specifics on the element were lost in a shipwreck. The peer review scientists found that the mineral was chromium, and del Rio withdrew his claim (8, 9).

Vanadium was discovered “again” in 1831 by the Swedish mineralogist and chemist, Nils Sefström, who named the element after the old Norse deity Vanadís (Scandinavian goddess Freya). Once he had also confirmed that the sample sent by del Rio did contain vanadium and not chromium, the two men were named as co-discoverers.

Even though the chemistry here is simplified, the results are the same. Aqueous solutions of vanadium present a rainbow of colors depending on its oxidation states: V5+ (V) yellow; V4+ (IV) blue; V3+ (III) green; V2+(II) violet (10). Just as a reminder, these oxidation states occur when elements lose electrons (negatively charged particles), giving them a positive charge due to the remaining protons in the nucleus. For example, since vanadium has 23 protons and 23 electrons to charge balance the neutral element, Vanadium2+ has “lost” 2 electrons in its outermost electron shell. What’s interesting is that vanadium can transfer electrons back and forth to the different oxidation states under specific circumstances to either create or store electrical power.

With the rise of variable renewable energy resources like solar and wind*, the term “variable” became an immediate problem. Solar creates electricity when the sun shines, but what happens at night? Back to electrical generation with fossil fuels. When the wind blows, there’s power, but when it doesn’t, coal and gas fill in the gaps. Thus began a super-scientific push to create a new generation of batteries to store extra power for use during renewable downtimes. And voila! Vanadium Flow Batteries.

Flow Batteries

The batteries were first successfully developed by Professor Maria Skyllas-Kazacos at the University of New South Wales in the 1980s and were patented in 1986. She focused on vanadium because of the multiple oxidation states of the single element, which was really smart. That meant no mixing of complex elements that could result in dangerous side products—it was all just vanadium. Their first industrial implementation was in 1995 at a power station in Japan. They’ve been commercialized since then and are used at grid-scale levels on the Japanese island of Hokkaido to store energy produced by massive wind farms on land and in the sea (11). Vanadium Flow Batteries are highly scalable, last longer, the vanadium is easily recyclable, and they don’t catch on fire and explode like lithium batteries (12).

But nothing is perfect, and Vanadium Flow Batteries are no exception. Initial upfront costs are high, and they require more space for the same amount of energy storage than other battery types because of the huge tanks of ionized vanadium. They are complex, thus needing trained experts for maintenance, and have limited small-scale application ability, which means they are probably out for individual home electricity generation. And the aqueous solution that creates the “flow” part? It’s sulfuric acid (H2SO4) at a concentration of 3-4 Molar (13). If you fall in, you’ll dissolve faster than cartoons in Dip (14).

Vanadium Flow Batteries could already be in use at power-generating stations near you. We’ll see how they fit into the puzzle that is “clean”, efficient energy generation in the decades to come.

*While I can be flippant — it’s my go-to when writing these articles — these phobias can be truly debilitating. The best thing you can do for yourself is therapy with a professional who can help with coping mechanisms to deal with these very real problems.

Extensive reading on wind power has shaped MY OPINION such that I believe the enormous “plastic” blades, acoustics, and vibrations, and turbines that create power from wind have been studied enough to show their massive and continuing damage to the environment far outweighs their positive effects. Until wind power can be made MUCH safer, giant spinning blades of death should be immediately discontinued.