Novel carbon-ion fuel cells. Quarterly technical report No. 9, October 1, 1995--December 31, 1995

This report presents research to develop an entirely new, fundamentally different class of fuel cell using a solid electrolyte that transports carbon ions. This fuel cell would use solid carbon dissolved in molten metal as a fuel reservoir and anode; expensive gaseous or liquid fuel would not be required. Thermodynamic factors favor a carbon-ion fuel cell over other fuel cell designs: a combination of enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs free energy makes the reaction of solid carbon and oxygen very efficient, and the entropy change allows this efficiency to slightly increase at high temperatures. The high temperature exhaust of the fuel cell would make it useful as a ``topping cycle``, to be followed by conventional steam turbine systems.