Using liquid sodium and ambient air, this system offers triple the energy density of current EV batteries — potentially enabling electric aircraft. The cell emits no carbon dioxide and even captures CO2 from the air, producing baking soda as a byproduct.
Fuel Cell Breakthrough for Transport Electrification
Traditional batteries are starting to hit their limit when it comes to how much energy they can store for their weight. That’s a big roadblock for the future of electric transportation, especially for energy-hungry machines like airplanes, trains, and ships. Now, a team of researchers at MIT and their collaborators may have found a way around it — and it’s exciting.
Instead of a battery, their new design is a fuel cell. Like a battery, it generates electricity through chemical reactions, but there’s a major advantage: it can be refueled quickly rather than slowly recharged. This particular fuel cell uses liquid sodium metal, a low-cost and widely available material, as its energy source. The other ingredient? Ordinary air. A solid ceramic layer between them helps sodium ions move through, while a special electrode on the air side sparks a reaction that produces electricity.
Three Times the Energy Density of Lithium-Ion
When the team tested a prototype, the results were striking. The sodium-air fuel cell stored more than three times as much energy per kilogram as the lithium-ion batteries used in today’s electric vehicles. That’s a massive leap forward. The findings, published on May 27 in the journal Joule, come from MIT doctoral students Karen Sugano, Sunil Mair, Saahir Ganti-Agrawal, Professor Yet-Ming Chiang, and colleagues.
