Back to results
US 5,348,812 AGranted
Carbon-ion fuel cell for the flameless oxidation of coal
OwnerFranklin H. Cocks, Henry LaViersinventors
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Loading patent…
Loading patent…
OwnerFranklin H. Cocks, Henry LaViersinventors
Estimating the term…
Fuel cells containing an anode of molten metal into which carbon has been dissolved, and a carbon-ion electrolyte, can be improved by making the molten metal the same that used as the cation in the solid carbon-ion electrolyte. Molten metals so selected are advantageous to use with carbon-ion electrolytes with the fluorite or perovskite prototype crystal structures. The improved device is an electrochemical fuel cell consisting of a cathode in contact with oxygen, an anode of liquid metal, especially molten metals of the lanthanide group or actinide group containing dissolved carbon, and a lanthanide- or actinide-containing carbon-ion electrolyte separating the anode and cathode electrodes.
An improved process for flameless oxidation of carbon to produce electric power in which carbon is dissolved into a molten metal, said metal acting as an anode by converting part of said carbon to an ionized state to produce carbon-ions and electrons, the passage of a current of said electrons through a power generating circuit to a cathode where said electrons react with oxygen to produce oxygen-ions, diffusion of said carbon-ions through a solid carbon-ion electrolyte having a fluorite crystal structure to said cathode, where said carbon-ions react with said oxygen-ions to produce oxidized carbon, wherein the improvement comprises use of a molten metal selected the lanthanide group consisting of:
An improved process for the flameless oxidation of carbon to produce electric power in which carbon is dissolved into a molten metal, said molten metal acting as an anode by converting part of said carbon to an ionized state to produce carbon-ions and electrons, the passage of a current of said electrons through a power generating circuit to a cathode where said electrons react with oxygen to produce oxygen-ions, the diffusion of said carbon-ions through a carbon-ion electrolyte to said cathode, wherein the improvement comprises the selection of said carbon-ion electrolyte from the group of carbon-ion electrolytes having a perovskite crystal structure of the form ABC.sub.3, where C is the negative tetravalent ion of carbon and A and B are cations of elements taken from the periodic table with the restrictions that:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.