The future: create liquid capable of storing solar energy for 18 years

The batteries of the future would be liquid and 100% friendly to the environment thanks to their ability to store solar energy.

During the last few years there have been great advances in the development of systems that take full advantage of solar energy. But perhaps there is nothing like what we share with you today: a liquid capable of storing the power of the sun for almost two decades.

It looks like something out of a science fiction work. But scientists at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have created this liquid chemical that works as a highly efficient new method of storing solar energy.

Researchers have called this new exploitation technique the Molecular Thermal Solar System.

And it would be much more efficient than current panels. Since the liquid medium would guarantee its maximum use and could last up to 18 years stored:

The technique represents that we can store solar energy in chemical bonds and release the energy as heat whenever we need it.

The combination of chemical energy storage with solar water heating panels allows a conversion of more than 80% of the incoming sunlight.

But we saw an opportunity to develop molecules that make the process much more efficient.

At the same time, we are demonstrating the performance of a robust system that can withstand more than 140 energy storage and release cycles with negligible degradation.

These are the words of Professor Kasper Moth-Poulsen, leader of the research. The works around this project have circulated since 2017. Managing to refine the system significantly in recent years.

An old story

In 2018 the research team succeeded in showing that solar energy can be directly transformed into energy stored within a liquid medium. This would allow it to be transported and released on demand.

At the time of the system`s operation demonstration, its solar energy conversion efficiency was just 0.01 percent.

Now the system stores 1.1% of incoming sunlight as latent chemical energy, a brutal improvement of a factor of 100.