XL Batteries is a Marlborough, Massachusetts startup building an Organic Flow Battery for grid-scale, long-duration energy storage. Spun out of Columbia University chemistry research, the company uses proprietary organic molecules dissolved in pH-neutral water instead of vanadium in acid - producing a non-flammable, non-toxic, non-corrosive battery assembled from commodity pumps, tanks and tubes. The pitch: safe, scalable storage that can run for 10, 20, even 50 hours by simply enlarging the tanks, at costs targeted below lithium-ion for long durations.
Quino Energy is a clean-tech startup commercializing aqueous organic flow batteries that store electricity in water-soluble quinone molecules instead of vanadium or lithium. Spun out of Harvard University in 2021, the company makes a low-cost, non-flammable organic electrolyte - derived from inexpensive coal-tar dyestuff chemicals through a zero-waste, continuous-flow process - that drops into existing vanadium flow battery hardware. The result targets long-duration grid and commercial energy storage at roughly a quarter the cost of vanadium, with a degradation rate about ten times slower than lithium iron phosphate.