Sea Water Activated Magnesium-Air Reserve Batteries: Calculation of Specific Energy and Energy Density for Various Cell Geometries

We address sustainable energy issues via scrutinizing magnesium-air reserve batteries. Such energy storage systems can hold their energy indefinitely, releasing it on demand, in emergency situations. Main advantage of water-activated batteries is that their electrolyte is supplied by the environment, where they get deployed, hence, only light weight electrodes and battery frames should be transported, rather than the significantly heavier aqueous electrolyte. Recent literature in the field is reviewed. One merit of this account is that recently, battery storage has become an effective way to increase share of renewables in photovoltaic energy systems utilized in farming. While the specific energy of reserve batteries can be determined unequivocally, their energy density calculation needs a clear definition of the considered battery volume. Therefore, this paper proposes a new modality of evaluating specific energy and energy density of seawater-activated metal-air reserve batteries for prismatic and cylindrical geometries, respectively.