Liquid Metal Battery to Flow into the Commercial Market

The unending search for better battery power with improved storage capacity has led to yet another innovative design - and this one is about to be released for commercial use.

A professor emeritus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has created a liquid metal battery that he will soon be introducing into the commercial market as a low-cost, long-life option.

Donald Sadoway is a materials scientist who has focused on developing affordable batteries throughout his years of research He cofounded his company, Ambri, in 2010, as a way to commercialize his liquid metal battery, which contains molten metal electrodes and a molten salt electrolyte. The Massachusetts-based company will be working with Colorado-based Xcel Energy in early 2024. Ambri plans to install a 300-kWh system for the utility and expects it to be up and running late next year.

“The concept of a liquid-metal battery makes it unique for stationary storage. It’s not flammable, unlike lithium. And it’s resistant to capacity fade. We’ve got data on thousands of charge cycles, which is years of operation. This thing should go 20 years and still retain 95 percent of its capacity.”

— Donald Sadoway

An article on the IEEE Spectrum website said that the liquid-metal battery could lead to a substantial reduction in energy costs.

The scientist credits the battery's alternative components for creating a system design different from that found in lithium-ion batteries.

Media Story - https://hackaday.com/2023/08/12/liquid-metal-battery-goes-into-production/

ARRL and NASA Team Up to Help Teachers

A radio experiment held on 26th July 2023, to decode a slow-scan TV (SSTV) message sent via the ham radio station on the International Space Station (ISS) was successful.

The image was received by a group of educators at the headquarters of ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio in Newington, Connecticut through the voice repeater on the ISS. Teachers from around the United States were on hand for the ARRL Teachers Institute on Wireless Technology, a program that empowers educators to incorporate amateur radio into their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum. As part of the professional development program, the group received and decoded the image sent by volunteers with Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS). The transmitted image said, "ARRL Teachers Institute: ensuring a space for radio in the next generation."

“Amateur radio is so important to the future of engineering and STEM in our country”

— Kristen Kucko, KQ4ECP

The teachers thought it was cool. The group gathered outside ARRL Headquarters with antennas they had made earlier in the day. As the pass happened, the educators tracked the ISS by hand. A warble of SSTV transmission filled the air, and the group was excited. After the pass, they used laptops to decode the audio stream into an image, while they sat on picnic tables and enjoyed pizza and wings.

For ARRL Education and Learning Manager Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, the experiment was a way to allow teachers to engage with the power of radio.

“When teachers can pull an image off the ISS via amateur radio, it gives a sense of accomplishment that gets them excited. We want to get them fired up about radio, so they can carry that energy back to their classrooms and do the same thing with their students,”

— Steve Goodgame, K5ATA

Each of the teachers on hand for the second phase of the institute, -- "TI-2: Remote Sensing and Data Analysis," -- have already been through the introductory course and they are all licensed radio amateurs. The institute costs teachers nothing to attend, thanks to funding from the ARRL Education & Technology Program - https://www.arrl.org/amateur-radio-in-the-classroom