People involved in the video:
Name: John Collins
Organization: C-Tech Innovation
Short interview for the video:
What is the main contribution/role of your institution in the HIGREEW project?
C-Tech Innovation’s role in the project has been to lead the work on stack engineering working closely with partner PINFLOW. This has involved considering:
- the manufacturing methods for both large and small scale manufacture,
- Using lab data from other partners to design a stack suitable for the HIGREEW chemistry.
- Development of new sealing methods
- Design, build and commissioning HIGREEW stacks
- Integrating them with balance of plant and operating them as energy storage systems to learn how the divided version of the HIGREEW chemistry performs at scale.
What is the most challenging and/or exciting part?
The most challenging was coping with the side effects of covid during the project in terms of timescales, suppliers and the partners including C-Tech which is a commercial small company.
The most interesting work has involved developing new seal designs and methods for the stacks we were developing that could reduce both component and assembly costs in stacks by directly depositing seals onto stack frames and bipolar plates. PINFLOW are currently evaluating this design in their stack design.
How are the results relevant to you and how will you make use of the project results in your institution? How are these advances important in the field of energy storage?
In C-Tech, we have experience of taking different flow battery technologies to stack scale (vanadium, zinc air, soluble lead…..) along with wider general experience of scaling up electrochemical processes for customers. HIGREEW gave us the opportunity to apply these skills to organic redox flow batteries which could be a cheaper alternative to the vanadium, the most common vanadium redox flow batteries technology.
C-Tech will use the seal technology that we have developed in some of our future cell designs. Knowledge of stack and system design with organic redox active chemistries will be useful in future commercial or consultancy work.
What is your experience within the HIGREEW project and collaborating with a team of EU partners?
- Very positive experience getting know a wider range of people and organizations with unique capabilities than are possible within just the UK.
- Even before the end of the project we have been having discussions with a couple of partners about commercial projects and can see other areas of future cooperation.
More videos from the HIGREEW partners can be found on the video timeline.