Oxygen Reduction and Methanol Oxidation Reaction in Alkaline Methanol Fuel Cell

Tam Duong, Toby Liu, Yan Yushan Ph.D Department of Chemical and Environmental

EngineeringMotivation:-Methanol is really easy to store because it is in liquid state at room temperature. That makes transportation becomes more effectively..-Fuel cell can act like a battery that does not really go down or need to be charged if methanol and oxidizer continue to be supplied. Fuel cell can produce 0.6-0.7 V for a long period of time. Therefore, it is highly promising to serve as a power source of cell phones, or laptops.-Reducing pollution by reducing the amount of CO2.

Introduction:-The cost of platinum which is the catalyst used for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) in fuel cell activity is still really high. Other catalysts have been tested in acidic solution to substitute platinum; however, the better activities are found in alkaline solution. There are more choices of metals which can be used as catalysts in alkaline solution. With the Nafion membrane, many catalysts with different loadings have been used to test the ability of replacing platinum.-Although many catalysts work out for the oxygen reduction reaction and methanol oxidation reaction, they are not really able to replaced platinum. However, AgNW has given a promising result.

Materials and Experiments: Table of Samples

-System: three-electrodeElectrodes: Hg/HgO reference electrode, platinum wire, glassy carbon electrod-Electrolyte: 0.1 M KOH-Membrane: 0.05% Nafion

-Others: Gas vent and micro-pipet

Results:

Figure 1 ORR of AgNW 600 µg/cm2

compare to Platinum catalyst

Figure 2 MOR of AgNW 600 µg/cm2 compare to Platinum catalyst

Figure 3 HOR of AgNW 600 µg/cm2 compare to Platinum catalyst

Tested Samples

Loadings(µg/cm2)

Ag/C 50Ag/C 100

AgNW 50AgNW 100AgNW 600

Au 100SeNW 300PdNT 50Pd/Pt 100Pd/Pt 150

Ni 320

OH

eOHO

6

632

322

OH

eOHCO

OHOHCH

65

6

22

3

Current

Acknowledgement: We thank Shaun Alia for making us all the needed samples. We thank Shaung Gu for the TPQOH membrane besides Nafion .05%. We also thank Tierui Zhang for letting us using his iron and iron/cobalt samples. This program is supported by NSF (National Science Foudation.

Conclusion:

-In summary, all of the samples work out for Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) even with the presence of Methanol; however, not all of them work out for Methanol and Hydrogen oxidation reaction (MOR or HOR). Good performance in ORR (with or without Methanol) shows that the catalyst can be used at the cathode without worrying about Methanol cross-over. Good performance in MOR or HOR shows that the catalyst is good to used at the anode.

- In comparison to the commercial catalyst, platinum, Silver nanowires have better performance than other catalysts.

Future Work-Silver nanowire synthesis-Platinum/Silver alloy will be testing-Carbon will be testing for Oxygen Reduction Reaction. (Testing with Nafion membrane and TPQPOH Alkaline binder).-Fe3CoPANI will be also testing