Electrooxidation study of pure ethanol/methanol and their mixture for the application in direct alcohol alkaline fuel cells (DAAFCs)

Abstract

Abstract Aliphatic alcohol mainly, ethanol, methanol and their mixture were subjected to electrooxidation study using cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique in a three electrodes half cell assembly (PGSTAT204, Autolab Netherlands). A single cell set up of direct alcohol alkaline fuel cell (DAAFC) was fabricated using laboratory synthesized alkaline membrane to validate the CV results. The DAAFC conditions were kept similar as that of CV experiments. The anode and cathode electrocatalysts were Pt-Ru (30%:15% by wt.)/Carbon black (C) (Alfa Aesar, USA) and Pt (40% by wt.)/High Surface Area Carbon (CHSA) (Alfa Aesar, USA) respectively. The CV and single cell experiments were performed at a temperature of 30 °C. The anode electrocatalyst was in the range of 0.5 mg/cm2 to 1.5 mg/cm2 for half cell CV analysis. The cell voltage and current density data were recorded for different concentrations of fuel (ethanol or methanol) and their mixture mixed with different concentration of KOH as electrolyte. The optimum electrocatalyst loading in half cell study was found to be 1 mg/cm2 of Pt-Ru/C irrespective of fuel used. The single cell was tested using optimum anode loading of 1 mg/cm2 of Pt-Ru/C which was found in CV experiment. Cathode loading was kept similar, in the order of 1 mg/cm2 Pt/CHSA. In single cell experiment, the maximum open circuit voltage (OCV) of 0.75 V and power density of 3.57 mW/cm2 at a current density of 17.76 mA/cm2 were obtained for the fuel of 2 M ethanol mixed with 1 M KOH. Whereas, maximum OCV of 0.62 V and power density of 7.10 mW/cm2 at a current density of 23.53 mA/cm2 were obtained for the fuel of 3 M methanol mixed with 6 M KOH. The mixture of methanol and ethanol (1:3) mixed with 0.5 M KOH produced the maximum OCV of 0.66 V and power density of 1.98 mW/cm2 at a current density of 11.54 mA/cm2.