Direct-ethanol fuel cell



Direct-ethanol fuel cells or DEFCs are a subcategory of fuel cell.

Advantages

DEFC uses Ethanol in the fuel cell instead of the more toxic methanol. Ethanol is an attractive alternative to methanol because it comes with a supply chain that's already in place. Ethanol also remains the easier fuel to work with for widespread use by consumers.

catalysts are some of the most efficient materials for the oxidation of small organic molecules.

Issues

Platinum-based catalysts are expensive, so practical exploitation of ethanol as fuel for a PEM fuel cells requires a new catalyst. New nanostructured electrocatalysts (HYPERMEC™ by ACTA SpA for example) have been developed, which are based on non-noble metals, preferentially mixtures of precious metals. In practice tiny metal particles are fixed onto a substrate in such a way that they produce a very active catalyst.

A oxygen from the air and the electrons from the external circuit forming water.

Bio-Ethanol based fuel cells may improve the well-to-wheel balance of this biofuel because of the increased conversion rate of the fuel cell compared to the internal combustion engine. But real world figures may be only achieved in some years since the development of direct methanol and ethanol fuel cells is lagging behind hydrogen powered fuel cells [1].

Present accomplishments

Technofil has produced a 1.5 W Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell prototype. The prototype consists of two monoplanar fuel cells giving an output voltage of 0.9 to 0.5 V depending on the load.

On 13th of May 2007 a team from the University of Applied Sciences in Offenburg did present world's first vehicle powered by a DEFC at Shell's Eco-marathon in France. The car "Schluckspecht" attended a successful test drive on Nogaro Circuit powered by a DEFC stack giving an output voltage of 20 to 45 V (depending on load).


The Team and the vehicle "Schluckspecht" (with the DEFC in the back) after the test drive on Nogaro Circuit /France.

See also

 Sustainable development Portal

Sources

  • Chemistry
  • DEFC membrane
  • producer
  • ICCOM-CNR Institute
  • ISTM-CNR
  • Universities of Trieste and Pisa.
  • "Schluckspecht" Team Homepage
Fuel Cells
Types:  ZFC 
Other: Hydrogen Economy | Hydrogen storage | Hydrogen station | Hydrogen Vehicles
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Direct-ethanol_fuel_cell". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.