China Built a Battery Out of Iron That Could Last 16 Years, and Iron Costs 80 Times Less Than Lithium

Researchers at the Institute of Metal Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a redesigned electrolyte for an alkaline all-iron flow battery that ran for more than 6,000 charge-discharge cycles with no measurable capacity loss, roughly 16 years of daily use. The 2026 Advanced Energy Materials paper points to grid-scale stationary storage, with iron reported to cost about 80 times less than lithium for the raw material. The next battery story out of China is not about juicing an EV or shaving millimeters off a phone.

Source: Bitcoin.com News