Alkaline direct oxidation fuel cell with non-platinum catalysts capable of converting glucose to electricity at high power output

Glucose is a potential fuel for fuel cells because it is renewable, abundant, non-toxic, and easy in handle and store. Conventional glucose fuel cells that use enzymes and micro-organisms as the catalyst are limited by their extremely low power output and rather short durability. In this work, a direct glucose fuel cell that uses an anion-exchange membrane and in-house non-platinum electrocatalysts is developed. It is shown that this type of direct glucose fuel cell with a relatively cheap membrane and catalysts can result in a maximum power density as high as 38 mW cm(-2) at 60 degrees C. The high performance is attributed mainly to the increased kinetics of both the glucose oxidation reaction and the oxygen reduction reaction rendered by the alkaline medium with the anion-exchange membrane. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.