• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.314-318
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• 2006

Direct formic acid fuel cells (DFAFCs) are potential alternative power sources for portable devices such as cellular phone, personal digital assistants (PDA) and laptop computers. In this study, we developed the catalysts for great performance of fuel cell, and investigated their characteristics by using EDS and SEM. Pt-Pd catalysts showed uniform size and homogeneous distribution. As the content of palladium increased, the performance of DFAFC increased. Pd black showed the greatest performance among the five catalysts tested. Also, Pt-Pd (1:1) catalyst had an excellent maximum power density of $120mW/cm^2$. As the operating temperature increased, fuel cell performance was increased due to a reaction activity increases of catalyst. But, temperature had only a slight effect on the performance of fuel cell in the best activity range of membrane.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.262-267
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• 2008

Effective dispersion of noble metal Pt-Ru catalysts was conducted for the application of direct formic acid fuel cell(DFAFC) electrodes by electrospray method. The amount of catalysts deposited on the electrodes increased with increasing deposition time. However, the performance of cell test decreased with the deposition time after 80 min. because of agglomeration of catalysts. With the conventional hand-spray method, the density of the anode catalysts deposited was $3.0\;mg/cm^2$ and the maximum power density of the MEA was $74\;mW/cm^2$. On the other hand, the MEA prepared by the electrospray method, showed a similar power density of $72\;mW/cm^2$. However, the density of the anode catalysts deposited was much lower than the case of the hand-spray and the density the anode catalysts in this case was $1.85\;mg/cm^2$.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.362-367
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• 2009

Recently, the use of formic acid as a fuel for direct liquid fuel cells has emerged as a promising alternative to methanol. In the work presented herein, we evaluated direct formic acid fuel cells(DFAFCs) with various components under operating conditions, for example, the thickness of the proton exchange membrane, concentration of formic acid, gas diffusion layer, and commercial catalyst. The thickness of the proton exchange membrane influenced performance related to the fuel cross-over. To optimize the cell performance, we investigated on the proper concentration of formic acid and catalyst for the formic acid oxidation. Consequently, membrance-electrode assembly(MEA) consisted of $Nafion^{(R)}$-115 and the Pt-Ru black as a anode catalyst showed the maximum performance. This performance was superior to the DMFCs' one.