Nano-catalytic energy cell

纳米催化能源电池

• 批准号: 413523-2011
• 负责人: Cadien, Kenneth
• 金额: $ 13.75万
• 依托单位: University of Alberta
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Strategic Projects - Group
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2014-01-01 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=551172
• 关键词: Nano; catalytic; energy; cell

Despite its low efficiency, burning liquid fuel to generate mechanical and electrical power is the simplest and commonly used energy conversion method. In general, burning is an uncontrolled phenomenon where one can have either burning or no burning resulting in large percentage of wasted energy. Creating localized heating at micro and nanoscale is a formidable challenge. There is no nanoscale or even microscale flame. Our earlier research has shown that nanoparticles of platinum catalytically convert methanol into very localized heat with individual particles turning red hot as observed by infrared thermometry. Even though the temperature around the nanoparticle can be hundreds of degrees centigrade, the entire device can remain at room temperature. This observation of nanocatalytic process can be used to generate sustainable thermal gradient on suspended microfabricated thermoelectric structures for direct conversion of liquid fuel, such as methanol, into electricity. We theorize that nanocatalytic heating zone supported on a micro-machined structure can create a micro-scale ultra-high thermal gradient that is two to three orders of magnitude greater than what can be achieved in macroscale. Maintaining such a high thermal gradient enables high-efficiency direct conversion of nanoburning heat into electricity through a nanostructured thermoelectric energy conversion system without any moving parts. The fuel's chemical energy spontaneously releases to thermal energy at predefined localized nanocatalytic heating zones without conventional ignition or high temperature gas-phase burning/combustions while bulk temperature of the entire device remains at ambient. This concept has the potential for developing a miniature energy converter the size of a battery that uses methanol as fuel, which can be recharged as needed. However, before such a goal can be achieved, many practical aspects need to be optimized. There is no apparent theoretical obstacle to making nanoburning a fully scalable distributed power system that could have specific power and energy 10-100 times better than existing batteries. The first goal of this proposal is to fabricate and

尽管效率低，但燃烧液体燃料以产生机械和电力是最简单且常用的能量转换方法。通常，燃烧是一种不受控制的现象，在该现象中可以燃烧或不燃烧，从而导致大量浪费能量。在微观和纳米级创建局部加热是一个巨大的挑战。没有纳米级甚至微观火焰。我们较早的研究表明，如红外温度法所观察到的，催化甲醇的纳米颗粒将甲醇转化为非常局部的热量，单个颗粒变热。即使纳米颗粒周围的温度可能是数百度摄氏度，整个设备也可以保持在室温下。这种对纳米催化过程的观察可用于在悬浮的微生物热电结构上产生可持续的热梯度，以直接转化液体燃料（例如甲醇）为电力。我们认为，在微型机加工结构上支撑的纳米催化加热区可以产生一个微尺度的超高热梯度，该梯度比宏观中可以实现的要大得多两到三个数量级。保持如此高的热梯度可以通过纳米结构的热电能量转换系统直接将纳米热的热量直接转化为电能，而无需任何运动部件。燃料的化学能自发地在预定义的局部纳米催化加热区域内自发释放到无常规点火或高温气相燃烧/燃烧的情况下，而整个设备的大量温度保持环境。这个概念具有开发微型能量转换器的潜力，即用甲醇作为燃料的电池的大小，可以根据需要充电。但是，在实现这样的目标之前，需要优化许多实际方面。没有明显的理论障碍可以使纳米荷马纳入完全可扩展的分布式电源系统，该电源可能比现有电池更好10-100倍。该建议的第一个目标是制造和