Decades ago, the world embarked on the decarbonization race. Each country has moved at a pace with nuclear power, but gas, hydrogen research and the rise of renewables were aimed at being the impetus to close coal plants. That’s when artificial intelligence arrived and turned the plan upside down. Data centers require a lot of electricity and, at peak computing, the demand is for immediate power. This is where burning coal comes in, but in China they believe they have found a solution to not permanently bury the coal.
Extract energy without burning it.
ZC-DCFC. That is the not-so-friendly name with which a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shenzhen University has baptized what they call a zero-carbon direct carbon fuel cell.
The group, led by Xie Heping, has been developing this concept since 2018, which is not so much a new way of using coal as a primary energy element, but rather a technique to exploit reserves in deep mines.
How it works. To achieve this, carbon is pulverized, purified and introduced into the anode chamber of a fuel cell. On the other hand, oxygen is introduced through the cathode, which causes a reaction in the carbon: an electrochemical oxidation. This process generates electricity directly without combustion, without turbines and without emissions.
According to those responsible, the efficiency in energy generation is notably greater than that obtained in conventional energy generation with coal and another advantage is that the system is silent, which also solves the problem of noise pollution that comes with the use of coal.
Solving the big problem. The ZC-DCFC also works without CO2 emissions because the high-purity carbon dioxide generated at the anode outlet is captured on site and converted by catalysis into chemical feedstocks such as syngas or compounds such as sodium bicarbonate.
But the system has not been made thinking about processing coal in a better way. For that we already have the answer in the form of renewables and green hydrogen. What Xie Heping’s team is creating is a solution to the big problem of harnessing coal from deep underground deposits.
not so fast. The idea is to create systems that generate electricity, directly, in the depths of these mines. This way there is no need to launch the very expensive industrial network to bring the coal to the surface and then process it. Electricity would be generated two kilometers deep and it is that energy that is directly transmitted to the surface.
Now, they have been investigating since 2018 and are already testing it, but although the project is framed within China’s great plan for the Deep Exploration of Earth and Mineral Resources, there is still a long way to go. This is a long-term plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 and it is already noted that it is unlikely that these carbon cells will come into operation on a large scale before 2045.
Either way, if it makes sense for anyone to research alternatives to coal using coal, it’s… China. Despite being the powerhouse of renewables and being at the top of the nuclear race, it is estimated that 60% of the nation’s electricity comes from coal. They have enormous reserves and somehow they have to be used.
Image | Ministry of Energy of Chile
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