One of the barriers to generating electricity from wind and solar energy is their intermittent nature. A promising alternative to accommodate the fluctuations in power output during unfavorable environmental conditions are hydrogen storage systems, which use hydrogen produced from water splitting to generate clean electricity. On the flip side of the coin, such systems suffer from poor efficiency and often need to be large in size to compensate for it. This, in turn, makes for complex thermal management and a lowered energy and power density.
With this in mind, researchers from Japan’s Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have proposed an alternative electric energy storage system that utilizes carbon as an energy source instead of hydrogen. The new “carbon/air secondary battery (CASB)” consists of a solid-oxide fuel and electrolysis cell (SOFC/ECs) where carbon…