The development of direct carbon fuel cells using molten carbonates

摘要

High temperature direct carbon fuel cells (HT-DCFCs) have several attractive features compared to other types of fuel cells. First of all, for the anode fuel, the HT-DCFCs directly use the solid carbon without the need for gasification. Second, the HT-DCFCs have the higher efficiency and lower emission than conventional coal-burning power plants. Note that the theoretical electrochemical conversion efficiency is nearly 100% due to almost-no change in entropy and the volume in off-gas are reduced by 10 times owing to the oxidation of carbon by a migrated oxidant from cathode without directly mixing with air.