Electric flight is a puzzle that engineers have yet to solve. Batteries are just too heavy. The best lithium-ion batteries in electric cars store around 300 Wh/kg of energy. That’s not enough for commercial planes. They need something that can store at least 1,000 Wh/kg.
A New Kind of Fuel Cell
MIT and a team of international researchers have been working on a new type of fuel cell. It’s called a Sodium-Air Fuel Cell. This cell uses liquid sodium as the fuel source and air as the oxygen source. A ceramic plate separates the two and allows sodium ions to flow through. This creates electricity. The team found some big advantages to this new fuel cell.
- It stores more energy than electric car batteries – three times more.
- It’s like filling up a gas tank – you can swap out the fuel pack quickly.
- It doesn’t have any carbon.
- It’s safer because the ceramic plate reduces the risk of a violent reaction if the cell is damaged.
- It’s cheaper than using rare and expensive materials like lithium and cobalt.
From Lab to Reality
The research team started a company called Propel Aero to turn this technology into a real product. They want to make a Sodium-Air Fuel Cell that’s the size of a brick and can power a 1 kWh drone for agricultural use within a year. After that, they plan to scale up for regional flights, boats, and trains.
If this technology works, we might see “lightweight, carbon-free planes” that change air travel like electric cars are changing the auto industry.
The team’s research was published on MIT’s website.