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Jam_Ba-La-Ya t1_ix3184q wrote

Ambri aren't salt batteries, but liquid metal. Why is this article calling them salt batteries?

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AndreLeo t1_ix32qmt wrote

Because there’s no difference between „liquid metal“ and molten salt [batteries]. Except if you use near room temperature melting eutectic alloys as one electrode, the metal melting is merely a „side product“ of using a molten salt electrolyte

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Jam_Ba-La-Ya t1_ix337rh wrote

But they're not salt. Ambri is high temp metal in liquid phase, transforming from an alloy and back.

High temperature is necessary to enable the transformation between states. The system must always be molten. The process is reversed by reversing polarity. One way it inputs electrons, the other it outputs electrons.

Molten salt batteries are literally molten salt, the heat is used to heat steam to turn turbines.

None of the literature or videos on ambri mentions salt at all.

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AndreLeo t1_ix3nvdo wrote

No, you are factually incorrect here. Molten salt batteries, as the name implies, are still batteries aka galvanic cells.

Or as wiki itself puts it: > Molten-salt batteries are a class of battery that uses molten salts as an electrolyte and offers both a high energy density and a high power density.

The Ambri cells ARE molten salt batteries, that doesn’t imply anything about the state of matter for the electrodes. The cells have a molten salt electrolyte (obviously, there aren’t many alternatives at these temperatures) and have at least one molten metal electrode. It doesn’t matter if it’s direct electrodeposition or alloying. Likewise Aluminium ion batteries would still be that, no matter if they use tin metal to form an alloy or if they use direct electrodeposition from say an ionic liquid.

And to back it up additionally, see Wiki again:

> Ambri, Inc. is an American startup company which aims to produce molten-salt batteries for energy storage in wind and solar power systems.[1] In 2016 it had thirty-seven employees.[2]

But thermal energy storage by utilizing the infinitely high heat capacity during solid-liquid transitions of salts is definitely a thing as well.

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