{"id":54351,"date":"2021-10-04T13:04:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T02:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=54351"},"modified":"2021-10-05T17:10:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T06:40:00","slug":"gelion-battery-manufacturing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/gelion-battery-manufacturing\/","title":{"rendered":"Gelion: Readying For Battery Manufacturing After COVID Delays"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gelion<\/p>\n

Like just about everybody, Australian battery innovator Gelion has had its business plans disrupted. But the company hopes it can have its first pilot trial production line ready early in 2022, and also anticipates commercial availability next year.<\/p>\n

And because a new manufacturing facility in Australia seems to go against a (mostly) political narrative that Australia doesn\u2019t build things anymore, SolarQuotes interviewed Gelion CEO Andrew Grimes last week to discuss the company\u2019s battery technology and its plans.<\/p>\n

Gelion\u2019s Battery Chemistry<\/h2>\n

Some readers will be familiar with zinc-bromine in flow batteries<\/a>, such as those made by Queensland company Redflow. Redflow was in fact the genesis of Gelion, as Grimes explained to us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe founder, Professor Thomas Maschmeyer [of Sydney University], was approached by Redflow a few years ago to see if he could help them with some problems. He\u2019s a catalytic chemist, he did some work for them, and realised that there was an opportunity to use the flow battery chemistry.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Gelion

Gelion chairman Professor Thomas Maschmeyer<\/p><\/div>\n

What Maschmeyer realised was the zinc-bromine chemistry could also be built in a form factor similar to lead-acid batteries for stationary storage applications. That application wasn\u2019t of interest to Redflow, so the company gave Maschmeyer permission to pursue his idea. He set about building prototypes to demonstrate the technology, and in 2015 Gelion<\/a> was born.<\/p>\n

Grimes told us the chemistry is the same as Redflow uses:<\/p>\n

\u201cZinc bromide gets split apart (into zinc and bromine) and brought back together, depending on whether you are charging or discharging.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, instead of pumping the zinc-bromine across a membrane, the Gelion approach is similar to lead-acid batteries, with plates and electrolytes.<\/p>\n

In a lead-acid battery, there\u2019s just a single electrolyte. In the Gelion chemistry, there are two – one zinc, and one bromine, both as gels – and it\u2019s the combination and division of those electrolytes that charge and discharge the batteries through the plates.<\/p>\n

Finding A Place In A Fragmenting Market<\/h2>\n

In a market where all the popular attention is given to lithium-ion batteries – courtesy of Tesla\u2019s very high public profile – adopting a different chemistry might seem high risk. However, as Maschmeyer explains in this video, zinc-bromine is \u201cnine times cheaper per electron transferred\u201d than a lithium-ion battery.<\/p>\n