A British firm has raised £250,000 ($404,000) of seed investment to develop a secondary copper-zinc battery aimed at grid-scale energy storage.
Cumulus Energy Storage’s (CES) venture is supported by a grant from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, with research in San Francisco and manufacturing near the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Sheffield, UK.
CES, based in Rotherham, Yorkshire, has patented a rechargeable copper-zinc cell comprising a bipolar electrode, a zinc electrolyte, a copper electrolyte and a metal-ion impermeable, polymer electrochemical membrane separator. The zinc electrolyte and the copper electrolyte are separated from each other by the bipolar electrode on one side and by the membrane separator on the other.
The company proposes to start selling in 2015 after the demonstration models have been commercialised.
