Omani students create ‘innovative car battery’ that runs on air

Oman Tuesday 22/October/2019 14:41 PM
By: Times News Service
Omani students create ‘innovative car battery’ that runs on air

Muscat: A group of student from Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman have created an innovative car battery that runs on compressed air.

According to the team, the 'CA-Battery' aims to use renewable air energy and transform it into compressed air, to be used in car batteries and engines instead of those that use electric energy and others that cause environmental pollution.

Al Azhar Al Harrasi, chief executive officer of CASE — the company formed by these students — said, “The average shelf-life period of the CA-Battery is about five years, which is longer than that of a normal battery. It also uses 100 per cent fresh air without toxic gases, and is not affected by high temperatures and pressure. Also. it is an eco-friendly battery."

The company’s name, CASE, is an acronym for 'Compressed Air Sustainable Energy’ and was founded by 10 SQU students.

Al Harrasi added, “Gathering parts for the battery was our biggest challenge. Most of the pieces were unavailable in Oman so we had to spend a lot of time scouring for them. Moreover, our company has found no support yet."

Atheer Al Nadabi, head of marketing at CASE, said, "We have participated in many competitions and exhibitions such as 'The Science Festival 17', 'The Tenth Scientific Agricultural Festival' and 'The Global Maker Fair'. This gave us a chance to gauge people's opinions about our product and keenly heard their feedback and used it for further development of our product. Also, we participated in these exhibitions to promote our product where we explained the product idea to get support from big companies."

"Our future plan is to further develop the battery and use it in other transportation vehicles such as buses, boats, and trucks. Besides, using compressed air idea in other fields instead of non-renewable energy," she added.