Magnetohydrodynamic instabilities in liquid metal batteries

The increasing deployment of strongly fluctuating renewable energies requires a corresponding large-scale expansion of electricity storage. Liquid metal batteries (LMBs) are presently discussed as a possible route of economical grid-scale energy storage. They consist of two liquid metal electrodes and a molten salt ionic conductor sandwiched between them. The density ratios allow for a stable stratification of the three layers. In the talk, we concentrate on the magnetohydrodynamic aspects of this cell type, with special focus on electro-vortex flows, the sloshing instability, and possible effects of the Tayler instability.