Electrode materials application and performance for seawater power source

Abstract

The technologies of energy storage systems have been improvised for years. Most of the technologies being researched are for big-scale applications such as grids systems for domestic and commercial use. The effort is to change our energy consumable pathway to renewable energy with low cost, high efficiency, and abundant resources. But for many reasons, there is not much effort that has been done on a small-scale application. The production and demand for simple batteries are expected to increase, but the common disadvantages are still encountered. Thus, this study focused on the usage of abundant materials as one of the battery components. The integration of cathode and anode material listed from the electrochemical series was studied, and it was able to produce a significant amount of energy output in the form of electricity. The first phase of the experiments was executed by using four chosen materials: copper, zinc, aluminium, and magnesium with different electrode materials combination to produce a different set of battery cells. The best electrode selected from the first phase of this study was magnesium and copper due to the largest voltage output produced by the cell which is 1.43 V. The second phase dealt with the integration of the connection between anode and cathode. The four series and two parallel connections of seawater cell using magnesium and copper as anode and cathode respectively were able to light up three 1.8 V LEDs in parallel interconnection circuits.