A fungal battery to store renewable energy

During her PhD studies, Charlotte Overgaard Wilhelmsen researched the use of fungal-produced electroactive compounds in a battery to store renewable energy. Quinones of fungal origin possess the ability to participate in electron transfer reactions, which makes them interesting to be used in redox flow batteries. The redox flow battery is a technology in which the energy is stored in liquid electrolytes containing electroactive compounds. Fungi are a promising source of cheap and sustainable quinone production and offer possibilities such as large-scale production and molecular engineering of the quinones. Charlotte Overgaard Wilhelmsen studied and demonstrated the use of the fungal quinone phoenicin as the electroactive compound in a redox flow battery electrolyte, and how this can be used to store energy.

The new research findings contribute to sustainable electrolyte production for renewable energy storage.

The PhD study was completed at Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, Center for Membrane Technology, Aalborg University.

This summary was prepared by the PhD student