• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.257-264
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• 2011

This study discribes performance of DEFC (Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell) utilized bio-ethanol based on fruit wastes. To produce the bio-ethanol, fruit wastes were treated at temperature $120^{\circ}C$ and 90minutes in acid pre-treatment. After pre-treatment was done, alcohol fermentation process was running. Initial alcohol concentration was 5%. Using the multi coloumn distillation system, more than 95% ethanol was distilled and each component of bio-ethanol was analyzed. In DEFC performance test, it was revealed that cell performance was much higher than that of ethanol. Comparing ethanol with mixed fuel (bio-ethanol (10%) + ethanol (90%)), the performance of ethanol was higher than that of mixed fuel. Even though the bio-ethanol from the fruit wastes is corresponded with transport ethanol standards, it thought that organic matter in bio-ethanol could be negative effect on fuel cell.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.419-424
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• 2014

Direct ethanol fuel cell has been fabricated with ceramic membrane. A porous silicon carbide (SiC) membrane having approximately 30% porosity has been applied for a direct ethanol proton exchange membrane (DE-PEM) fuel cell. A horizontal type cell having Pt ($18mg/cm^2$) catalyst layer on both side of the ceramic membrane was used for the demonstration test. The ethanol oxidation based-fuel cell stack showed very high voltage (1.289V) and measurable current level (68mA) even though at room temperature.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.423-429
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• 2008

This work was carried out to improve the performance of anodic electrocatalysts in direct ethanol fuel cell(DEFC). PtRu and $Pt_5Ru_4M$(M= Ni, Sn, Mo and W) electrocatalysts were prepared by using a $NaBH_4$ reduction method. Alloy crystal structure and particle size of electrocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction(XRD) and transmission electron microscopy(TEM). The XRD analysis of the electrocatalysts revealed that the face-centered cubic(fcc) peaks shifted to slightly higher diffraction angles when third metals were added. Average size of the uniform particles was observed to be approximately $3{\sim}3.5\;nm$ from the TEM image. The electrochemical measurements were carried out in the solution 1M $H_2SO_4$ and 1M $C_2H_5OH$ at room temperature. Cyclic-voltammogram results showed that $Pt_5Ru_4W$ electrocatalyst exhibited much higher current density for ethanol oxidation of $2.73\;mA/cm^2$ than PtRu electrocatalyst of $0.73\;mA/cm^2$.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.191-194
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• 2009

PtRu based and PtSn based ternary catalysts were prepared by a conventional impregnation method using NaBH4 as reducing agent. The alloy formation, crystalline size and chemical composition of the in-house catalysts were determined by XRD, TEM and EDX, respectively. The chemical compositions of in-house catalysts were quite similar to the nominal value and good alloy formations were also observed. Further, crystalline sizes of ternary catalysts were comparatively smaller than binary catalysts and were approximately 3.5 ~ 5.5 nm. The electrochemical measurements were carried out in the solution 1 M $H_2SO_4$ with 1 M $C_2H_5OH$ at room temperature. LSV results obtained that ternary catalysts were higher current densities and specific activities. Especially, in case of tungsten addition system, Pt5Sn4W/C have the highest specific activities values and was approximately 21.2 and 3.1 times higher than that of PtRu/C and PtSn/C electrocatalyst.