The rise of renewable energy has exposed a new challenge: energy storage. Solar and wind energy, though inexpensive, are intermittent. To make the entire grid rely on renewable energy, a large amount of storage is needed to avoid blackouts. It is at this moment that an extraordinary metal, vanadium, through vanadium battery technology, has shown its irreplaceable role in the field of sustainable energy. Its unique advantages make it applicable to solar and wind farms, grid energy storage systems, electric vehicle charging, solar panels, diesel generators, and communication base stations.
Our most common vanadium battery is the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). It is important to know that batteries come in various types, such as those storing energy through physical force or chemical reactions. The vanadium redox flow battery belongs to the latter category. What makes this battery unique is that it uses a metal called vanadium inside, which can also take on several different forms. Its working principle, simply put, is to store and release electrical energy by utilising the conversion of vanadium ions between different oxidation states.
There is a special liquid in the battery called electrolyte. Its main component, vanadium pentoxide (V₂O₅), is of high purity, which establishes the excellent performance of the vanadium battery and demonstrates the high value of the vanadium. Vanadium, a transition metal, is grey-white in colour, with excellent ductility, corrosion resistance, and strength. It remains solid at room temperature, with a melting point of 1910°C and a boiling point of 3407°C. The vanadium in vanadium batteries is extracted from vanadium ore. Vanadium primarily exists in the form of vanadium titano-magnetite (the main source), vanadinite, uranium-vanadium ore, and descloizite. Trace amounts of vanadium are also found in some coal, petroleum, and stone coal.
Flow battery electrolyte consists of an aqueous solution, eliminating the risk of thermal runaway seen in lithium-ion batteries, thus preventing combustion or explosion. The vanadium redox flow battery can withstand tens of thousands of charges and discharges and has a lifespan of more than 25 years, exceeding the traditional battery cycle. To increase the capacity, you only need to expand the electrolyte tank or increase the concentration; to increase the power, you need to increase the stack area. Additionally, vanadium ions in the electrolyte can be chemically converted back into usable forms after use, making the battery recyclable.
Projected to dominate the energy storage market above 1MW capacity in the future, vanadium redox flow batteries owe their success to the critical mineral resource, vanadium.
Ferro-Alloy Resources Ltd (LON:FAR) is developing the giant Balasausqandiq vanadium deposit in Kyzylordinskaya oblast of southern Kazakhstan. The ore at this deposit is unlike that of nearly all other primary vanadium deposits and is capable of being treated by a much lower cost process.
