Textile Wastewater Could Be Used in Batteries.

Aug-31-18 A pollutant from textile manufacturing wastewater could find new use in liquid-based redox flow batteries.

Commonly used as a textile dye, the chemical methylene blue is also considered a pollutant, and is difficult to remove from water. However, methylene blue is also good at storing and releasing energy when dissolved in water. So instead of removing the dye, the team from the University at Buffalo decided to repurpose the methylene blue-tainted water itself by testing its use in redox flow batteries, which rely on electrolytes in the water (textile wastewater also naturally contains salts.)

In tests using simple batteries employing the dye dissolved in salt water, the methylene blue batteries were able to operate at near 100 percent efficiency, with some degradation over cycles that was solved by using a different membrane. The team hopes to continue their testing using actual textile mill wastewater.

More Info about this Invention:

[FUTURISM.COM]
[BUFFALO.EDU]

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