Death of the VRB at Infancy?

From New Atlas 15 Feb 17
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Back in 2014, the Harvard researchers managed to do away with vanadium in favor of a more environmentally-friendly molecule called quinone. Then in 2015 they improved on this yet again, replacing bromine with ferrocyanide, a compound commonly added to kitchen salt as an anti-caking agent. This left them with a flow battery based on an alkaline, rather an acidic solution, with the higher pH meaning less corrosion and tanks that could be made out of cheaper plastic. But in its latest step forward, the team is looking to split the difference.
"The batteries that our group designed previously used more corrosive solutions, either strong acids or strong bases," Roy Gordon, leader of the research, explains to New Atlas. "The new design uses neutral water solutions that are neither acidic or alkaline."
The new battery relies on the molecule viologen as the negative electrolyte, and the molecule ferrocene for the positive electrolyte. Putting these molecules to work in the battery first required the researchers to make them water-soluble and more resistant to degradation by modifying their molecular structure. This left them with molecules that could be cycled safely, so much so that the battery loses just one percent of its capacity every 1,000 cycles.
"Lithium-ion batteries don't even survive 1,000 complete charge-discharge cycles," said Michael Aziz, who co-authored the new research.
This incredibly long life span is a promising sign, but what has the researchers particularly excited is the battery's potential to drive down costs. Typically, flow batteries require the separator membrane to be made from expensive materials so they can endure the aggressive chemical reactions inside, something that can amount to one third of the total cost of the device. But with pH-neutral water inside, things could get a whole lot cheaper.
"It is hard to give an exact ratio of costs," Gordon tells us. "However, it is clear that the costs will be lower than those of currently used membranes, which are made of expensive fluorine-containing polymers. The hydrocarbon polymers that we use are made inexpensively from petroleum, without adding any expensive fluorine." <<<
Every dog has its day but maybe VRB's is passing along with new Lithium startups ?