Catalyst-mitigated arrayed aluminum-air origami fuel cell with ink-jet printed custom-porosity cathode

Abstract

Research to build origami Aluminum (Al)-air fuel cell with high energy throughput is immensely motivated from its diverse application domains. To this end, continued research into the development of economical and mass-produced bioelectrodes has been one of the major challenges. Herein, for the first time printed origami and array-type Al-Air fuel cell, with customizable porous cathode, has been demonstrated without additional catalyst. Without the need for further modification and post-processing treatment, the customized porous cathode was printed using a rapidly prototyped tabletop PCB inkjet printer. The readily available food wrapping Al foil was used to make an anode. The developed Al-air fuel cell is not only miniaturized in size, simple to produce and economical, but also capable of generating excellent electrochemical performance. With an optimized porous cathode structure and electrolytes, the open circuit potential (OCP) of two series connected Al-air fuel cell was measured to be 2.62 ± 70 V, and maximum power density of 1.024 ± 53 mW/cm2 at 1 V was witnessed. In addition, for higher polarization performance, it can be integrated in array-type configuration (series/parallel) on the similar pieces of paper. Such a novel array-type Al-air fuel cell, with simple porous cathode, has great potential for powering various flexible and personalized devices.