Context
International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), has developed a cost-effective electrocatalyst for the metal-air battery.
About ARCI
ARCI was established in 1997 and is an autonomous R&D Centre of the Department of Science and Technology (DST)., Govt. of India.
About the energy sources
- With the rise in demand for different energy sources, worldwide efforts are being made to develop different kinds of energy devices.
- The various types of energy devices are available, such as lithium-ion batteries, lead-acid batteries, redox flow batteries, lithium-air batteries, zinc-air batteries, etc. sodium-ion batteries, fuel cells, and supercapacitors.
- Zn-air batteries: They have drawn significant attention due to their low cost and high energy density.
- They are compact power sources for portable electronics and electric vehicles and energy storage devices to manage energy flow among renewable energy generators, such as wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, electric grids, and end-users.
- A major challenge for such batteries is catalyst development.
- A bi-functional catalyst works for oxygen reduction while discharging the battery and the same catalyst helps in oxygen evolution reaction during the charging cycle.
The Energy Efficiency Sources (EES) technologies around the world
- Energy storage technologies encompass a large set of diverse technologies.
- They are broadly classified into mechanical, electrochemical, chemical, electrical and thermal energy storage systems as shown in the figure below.
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