The Energy Storage and Refrigeration facility conducts world-leading research and development on advanced energy storage technologies.
Research areas include:
- Redox flow batteries including the vanadium and iron flow battery systems
- Hybrid fuel cells including the vanadium oxygen hybrid fuel cell
- Electrolyte production methods
- Graphite and conducting plastic electrodes
- Membrane evaluation
- Enhanced flow battery cell and stack design (computational modelling and validation)
- Energy storage system level design
- Microgrid simulations
- Liquid metal batteries
- Refrigeration and air conditioner performance optimisation
Our facilities include:
- Access to a 30 kW/130 kWh commercial VRB system
- Access to dedicated computation laboratories for advanced simulation modelling
- Extensive state of the art electrochemical analysis and battery test equipment
- Electrolyte characterisation equipment
- Inert atmosphere controlled high temperature furnaces
- Climate controlled chambers for evaluating effects of environmental parameters on energy storage system performance
- Access to advanced additive and automated manufacturing facilities
This facility is also part of CENELEST, opens in a new window (The German-Australian Alliance for Electrochemical Technologies for Storage of Renewable Energy).
The NextGEN Energy Storage vertically integrated project, opens in a new window is also supported by the Energy Storage and Refrigeration facility.