Synthesis of Catalyst for Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell and its Electrochemical Characterizations

Abstract

Fuel cell is a device which uses to generate electric current by chemical reaction without any kind of combustion and noise. It is environmental friendly and more efficient among all the other energy devices. Now the increasing interest of direct alcohol fuel cell (DAFC) is emphasized as an alternate source of clean, cheap, reliable and minimal environmental impact energy. Mostly methanol is used as a fuel but due to its toxicity, alternatively ethanol is used as a fuel due to its some advantages like nontoxic and its availability from biomass resources. In this research, a suitable catalyst for direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC) is synthesized, which increase the rate of oxidation of ethanol into CO2. The purpose of this work is to reduce the poisoning effect which will increase the activity of electrode. The operating temperature of direct ethanol solid oxide fuel cell (DESOFC) is within the range 600-1000°C. Three samples with different molar ratio are prepared Li0.1Ni0.5Cu0.1Ce0.3 oxides, Li0.1Ni0.5Cu0.2Ce0.2 oxides and Li0.1Ni0.5Cu0.3Ce0.1 oxides by sol-gel method. The best results are shown by Li0.1Ni0.5Cu0.1Ce0.3 oxides the highest conductivity is 0.27 S/cm at 750°C and power density 20 mWcm-2 at 700°C observed.