Hacker News Reader

Comment by ethagknight | Hacker News Reader

For 3/4 of your concerns, kinda like gasoline?

Gasoline is mostly just flammable (and the vapor /slightly/ explosive).

We'd need to know more about what type of chemicals are used in this battery, but glancing at what's involved for 'flow batteries' I'd make a /slightly/ educated guess that these would all be considered 'industrial' materials. You might see a public bus using them, but I doubt it would be safe to allow the average driver to self-refuel.

The average driver refills their vehicle using decades old technology which would probably be unsuited for exchanging the fluid these batteries would need. Any kind of system for exchanging the fluid in a flow battery would probably be self contained and would be better designed than holding a lever on a nozzle dumping a flammable liquid into an empty vessel.

The article mentions the chemicals. Light alcohols and water.

Alcohols and water are just the solvent. It probably use some metal ion too. The charge of the ion can change "easily", so you can charge, discharge and recharge it.

> Gasoline is mostly just flammable (and the vapor /slightly/ explosive).

Gasoline is incredibly toxic, we are just accustom to it so we don't give it much though.

I wouldn't say 'incredibly' toxic. You can touch it for a while with no negative effects, and you shouldn't ingest it.

Which of the 4 is not like gasoline? Seems like 4/4 to me.

I'm seeing 3.5/4 - gasoline isn't returned to distributors after use.

Just less usefully so, as emissions.

Still has a point regarding the potential superiority of battery exchange programs. Gasoline isn't exactly the holy grail of fuels :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com