USA Develops Biomass Fuel Low-Temperature Battery for Turning Rice Straw into Electric Energy
According to the report of the Physicist Organization Network on February 19th, American scientists have developed a low-temperature fuel cell that directly uses biomass as raw material. The fuel cell can convert rice straw, sawdust, algae, and even organic fertilizers into electricity with the help of solar energy or waste heat. The energy density is nearly 100 times higher than that of cellulose-based microbial fuel cells. The related papers have been published in Nature's magazine "Natural News".
Although the technology of low-temperature fuel cells driven by methanol or hydrogen has made considerable progress, the low-temperature fuel cell technology has not been able to directly use biomass as fuel due to the lack of an effective catalytic system for the polymeric materials. In the new study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States developed a new type of low-temperature fuel cell that can use solar or thermal energy to activate a catalyst that directly converts a variety of biomass into electricity.
This technology allows the biomass to be processed at room temperature. The requirements for raw materials are extremely low, and it can be applied to almost all biomasses such as starch, cellulose, lignin, and even waste from switchgrass, sawdust, algae, and poultry processing. Can be used to generate electricity. In the absence of the raw materials mentioned above, water-soluble biomass or organic materials suspended in the liquid also have no problem. The device can be used on a small scale in families in remote areas, and can also be used on a large scale in biomass-rich cities.
The challenge for biomass fuel cell research is that biomass with carbon-carbon chains cannot easily pass through conventional catalysts, even if it is an expensive precious metal catalyst. To solve this problem, scientists have developed microbial fuel cells that use microorganisms and enzymes to break down biomass. However, the disadvantage of this method is that microorganisms and enzymes can only selectively decompose certain specific types of biomass and require high purity of raw materials.
Deng Yulin, a professor of chemical and biological molecular engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology who is in charge of the study, and his team activated the redox reaction of fuel cells by introducing external energy sources. In the new system, the biomass feedstock is ground and mixed with a polyoxometallate (POM) catalyst solution, which is then exposed to sunlight or heat radiation. As a photochemical and thermochemical catalyst, POM is both an oxidant and a charge carrier. Under light radiation or heat radiation, POM will oxidize the biomass, transport the biomass charge to the anode of the fuel cell, and the electrons will be transported to the cathode, where the oxidation reaction takes place and the current is generated through the external circuit. Deng Yulin said that if only the biomass and the catalyst are mixed at room temperature, they will not react. However, once it is exposed to light or heat, the reaction will start immediately.
Experiments have shown that this fuel cell lasts up to 20 hours, which indicates that the POM catalyst can be reused without further treatment. Researchers report that the fuel cell has a maximum energy density of 0.72 milliwatts per square centimeter, which is nearly 100 times higher than that of cellulose-based microbial fuel cells, and is close to the highest performance microbial fuel cell. Deng Yulin believes that there should be 5 to 10 times more room for improvement after optimizing the treatment process. In the future, the performance of this biomass fuel cell may even be comparable to methanol fuel cells.
Deng Yulin said: “An important advantage of the new technology is that it can accomplish biodegradation and power generation in a single chemical process. Solar and biomass energy are the two most important green energy sources in the world today, and our system combines them in Produce electricity together, but also reduce the dependence on fossil fuels." (Wang Xiaolong)
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