With the development of human society, the dependence on electric energy is becoming stronger and stronger, and human social activities are increasingly demanding power and economic requirements. Existing diesel generators, lead-acid batteries, lithium ion batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, etc Power supply is difficult to fully meet people's diverse needs for power supply safety, economy and long battery life.
Metal fuel cells, also known as metal-air batteries or metal-air fuel cells, are a device that directly converts chemical energy from light metals such as magnesium and aluminum into electricity. It has the advantages of high energy density, low thermal radiation, low noise, long storage time, long discharge life, wide adaptation temperature range, high safety factor, rich resources and green pollution-free. , Standby power sources for military installations and range extenders for electric vehicles have broad application prospects.
For a long time, aluminum fuel cells have faced many technical bottlenecks, such as the low activity of manganese oxide catalysts, the large cathodic polarization resistance of the air, the serious self-corrosion of anode aluminum hydrogen evolution, the difficult thermal control, and the difficulty of secondary start-up. Chemical applications are progressing slowly.
The research team of the Lithium Battery Engineering Laboratory of the Ningbo Institute of Materials of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has applied graphene to modify and composite air cathode catalyst materials to greatly improve the electrochemical performance of batteries. A series of research work was published in the internationally renowned academic journal of chemistry and electrochemistry (Chemistry -A European Journal, 2018,24,14816, Electrochimica Acta, 2018,263,544, Energy Technology, 2017,5,2226, Chemical Communications, 2017,53,7921, Electrochimica Acta, 2017,254,14) and invited to Published a review review in Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2018, 6, 10595).
The research team has always adhered to the concept of turning technology into productivity, which lasted nearly five years and conducted in-depth research on battery design and system integration technology. In 2015, a magnesium fuel cell power generation system with an energy density of 400Wh / kg, a capacity of 3kWh, and an output of 300W was successfully developed. In 2017, we developed high-performance graphene-based aluminum fuel cell core components (see Figure 1), and successfully developed a graphene air cathode-based aluminum fuel cell power generation system with an energy density of 510Wh / kg, a capacity of 20kWh, and an output of 1000W.
▲ Figure 1 Schematic diagram and core components of graphene-based aluminum fuel cell
Recently, the research team and the R & D team of the Zhejiang Graphene Manufacturing Innovation Center vigorously promoted the process development and engineering prototype development of aluminum fuel cells, and successfully developed a graphene-based aluminum fuel cell with an energy density of 545Wh / kg and a capacity of 130kWh. The system (see Figure 2), which consists of an array of six 10-cell battery stacks in series. The test results show that the 50A current discharge power can reach 3000W, and the peak power is expected to reach 4800W (see Figure 3). The battery system is expected to be used as a power source or a backup power source for electric vehicles and the like. In order to show the effect of using the battery system, they carried out demonstrations on the power supply of single building lighting and graphene far-infrared energy room (see Figure 4).
▲ Figure 2 1000W and 3000W graphene-based aluminum fuel cell power generation system
At present, the project already has the ability to produce small batches of key materials and components of aluminum fuel cells, single cells, and 1kW modular battery stacks. The R & D team is actively looking for suitable partners to accelerate the industrialization.