Sulfur Better than Hydrogen for Energy Storage, Engineers Find

For decades we have seen scientists and engineers trying to outdo each other in finding more efficient and cheaper ways of storing energy. A group from the German Aerospace Center now says that sulphur is the way forward. Let’s have a look

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[nicholashylton]

Sulphur storage? Hmm. This concept smells a little funny.

[richdobbs]

My first assignment as a refinery process engineer was to assist in the start up of a sulfuric acid plant. It mainly was used to burn H2S recovered from desulfurizing refinery products, but it could burn sulfur for startup, or to even out production. This process must be entirely different, since there is no way that process could have been converted to be so energy efficient to act like a battery. And it was a masterpiece of complex material engineering, with parts of the plant being plain carbon steel, lead lined sections, fiberglass ducts, acid resistant bricks, cathodic protected heat exchangers, etc.

[adriang]

Regardless of all these thermal solutions not being perfect, I am heartend by the amount and diversity of entrepreneurs willing to invest in the sector.

[tsbrownie]

They can convert sulfur to sulphur and back again.

[daxtonbrown]

I'm a mechanical engineer working to commercialize graphene. Came across some companies doing heat storage in graphite and running the temperature up to 2000c, then getting the power back with high temp infrared photovoltaics. It would work better with graphene because of high thermal conductivity.

[TimelessTechNL]

If only we had more fluklear energy, we could basically power anything we want indefinitely. Fun fact, the first anti nuclear protests were actually because of concerns that humanity would become too powerful when we would deploy enough fluklear plants. Such a shame we make decisions nowadays mostly on how people feel and getting reelected. Keep informing them Sabine!

[terrenusvitae]

Ah yes, I believe Hell runs on a similar system.

[markosluga]

Only in German will you be able to describe the "worst case scenario" with one word: Dunkelflaute, Weltschmerz, Schadenfreude...

[binqnjq]

remember that thermal transfer is flux through an area. Volume is 3rd power, surface area is 2nd. the larger the tanks are, the less heat will leak w/respect to the volume. raising efficiency with respect to "self-discharge" means making bigger vats. can it get easier. the remaining loss is an artifact of the exergy

[billirwin]

I think it is great that so many methods of storing energy are being tried. Then we can weigh up the pros and cons and use the appropriate method for the circumstances.
And of course that is what you are doing Sabine. Making us aware of the Pros and cons. Thank you.

[msromike]

Interesting, hope it goes somewhere. Millions of tons of sulfuric acid. What could possibly go wrong? :)
The thing is we already have baseload energy options, but not the political will to implement it. I am referring to next generation modular nuclear energy.

[danielhughes]

You don't need two weeks of storage. Even on cloudy days you get 20% power from solar panels. So you just over provision them by a factor of 5. This is viable because of how cheap solar panels are. Now you only need 1 day of storage. You can improve this further with geographically diverse wind and solar. (the chances of cloud cover and no wind over a very large area is very small) A long running simulation in Australia shows you can get to over 99% renewable energy with just 5 hours of storage.

[DFPercush]

Just the thought of heating up sulfuric acid to 1000 degrees is absolutely terrifying. I hope nobody ever has to go near that.

[MilushevGeorgi]

Greetings from Bulgaria/ the US of A, live in Tennessee, originally from Sofia, also German and English are so similar, it’s fascinating to listen

[MrStevos]

Thanks for the new word "Dunkelflaute "

[Four_Words_And_Much_More]

Balanced views of new ideas. TY Sabine. You are a great physicist. Your understanding and then helping ordinary people understand complicated ideas is remarkable. Gratitude.

[iGexogen]

You also need to include hydro generation in equation to use it as a glue between constant non-adjustable nuclear and chaotic green, hydro is most flexible and can adjust output in minutes, and lifting water up can be also used as excess energy storage.

[geerliglecluse]

Energy storage isn't the only solution to lack of sun or wind. Nuclear power plants can fill the gap as well, And very well, even though not everyone agrees to that.

[photovincent]

May I suggest a heat exchanger in hell, which is great until hell freezes over. With the current supply of evil in the world that will not happen for hundreds of years the least

[triplec]

Where local terrain permits, it seems that Pumped Hydro Storage can be an efficient (70-80%) and simple way to store energy. If using 2 reservoirs, both upper and lower could be partially covered with floating solar panels to reduce evaporation losses and to generate additional electricity for pumping. Of course, you would have to limit the solar panel coverage based on the minimum amount of water allowed in each reservoir.