LYNNTECH INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: Ethanol is an attractive alternative as fuel for direct alcohol fuel cells since it is ren

Description

Ethanol is an attractive alternative as fuel for direct alcohol fuel cells since it is renewable, more energy dense and less toxic than methanol. Alkaline electrochemistry further provides potential for improved ethanol oxidation kinetics and the use of non-Pt catalysts. Complete 12 electron electro-oxidation of ethanol to CO2 is however difficult to achieve, resulting in low energy efficiency for the Direct Ethanol Fuel Cells (DEFCs). In addition, the requirement of KOH in the fuel feed complicates the system design. Lynntech proposes a combinatorial approach to the development of active and stable ethanol electro-oxidation catalyst to achieve high electron transfer efficiency of the oxidation process. Also the use of alkaline modifiers in the catalyst layer is proposed to eliminate KOH required in the fuel feed. In combination with an ethanol tolerant cathode catalyst, Lynntech proposes to develop a DEFC stack with more than 150 mW/cm2 power density and capable of working with greater than 5 M ethanol feed. The performance and stability of the DEFC will be demonstrated in a short stack for 100 hours. A complete 40W (net) system design will be developed for the Phase II prototype system with a design energy density of greater than 1000 Wh/kg.