Direct hydrazine-hydrogen peroxide fuel cell using carbon supported Co@Au core-shell nanocatalyst

Abstract

Carbon-supported Co@Au core-shell/C and Au/C nanoparticles are synthesized by a successive reduction method in an aqueous solution and used as the anode and cathode electrocatalysts for the direct hydrazine-hydrogen peroxide fuel cell, respectively. The physical and electrochemical properties of the as-prepared electrocatalysts are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and fuel cell field tests. In this work, the effects of different operation conditions including operation temperature, fuel and oxidant concentration and fuel and oxidant flow rate on the performance of fuel cell are systematically investigated. The experimental results exhibit an open circuit voltage of about 1.79 V and a peak power density of 122.75 mW cm−2 at a current density of 128 mA cm−2 and a cell voltage of 0.959 V operating on 2.0 M N2H4 and 2.0 M H2O2 at 60 °C.