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submitted 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) by Gsus4@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] echodot@feddit.uk 8 points 5 hours ago

I don't think I understand any better what the battery is then I did before. As per usual Wikipedia sucks at explaining concepts that you don't actually already understand.

[-] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 8 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Here's the short version.

A normal battery is a sealed cell. It has a positive and negative electrode, with an electrolyte between them. Usually many layers of this. When you charge it, a chemical change happens. When you discharge it, that chemical change is undone.

A redox flow battery uses fixed electrodes, but a liquid electrolyte that can be pumped and stored. This means you can increase overall storage capacity simply by adding more electrolyte tanks, without needing more electrodes. Think of it like a generator with a bigger gas tank.

The whole vanadium thing is just one of the metals used in the battery. There's a few kind of redox flow batteries using different chemistries

[-] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

Also there are hundreds of chemical combinations that produce electricity that we know about, and only a handful have been worked on for batteries. As reported in Harper's Magazine many years back, that is not indexed to enshitified search engines, because fuck you (us, google, et al talking.)

[-] jakobmn@feddit.dk 1 points 3 hours ago

Thank you! That is a smart solution to inrease capacity!

[-] teyrnon@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 hours ago

Yeah wikipedia is hit or miss, especially as technical people like to show off their fancy words and explain things in ways only technical people understand.

But it's Vanadium, and you can look that up elsewhere. The first large industrial vanadium battery (if I recall,) was some years back, I think in WA State.

[-] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago

If I really want to feel stupid, I go to the Wikipedia article for some simple maths concept I thought I understood

this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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