Enhancing the Performance of Microfluidic Fuel Cells by Modifying the Carbon-Fiber Paper Cathode by Air Annealing and Acid Oxidation

Liu, Chunmei; Liu, Lei; Wang, Xuetao; Xu, Bin; Lan, Weijuan

doi:10.1021/acs.iecr.8b02994

Cited by 13 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The electrodeposition was also conducted by the electrochemical workstation in a three-electrode system. The palladium catalyst was electrodeposited at 0 V vs Ag/AgCl (in saturated KCl, 0.198 V) until the palladium catalyst loading was 5 mg cm –2 under the assumption that the Coulombic efficiency was 60%. , The detailed surface morphologies and crystal size of the anode palladium catalysts can be found in our previous research. , …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In MFCs, many oxidants have been studied, such as air, , H 2 O 2 , ClO – , KMnO 4 , VO 2 + , and Fe 3+ . , These oxidants of O 2 , H 2 O 2 , ClO – , and Cr 2 O 7 – require noble or non-noble metals as catalysts to obtain better oxidability. Some oxidants of KMnO 4 and VO 2 + do not need a catalyst but have their own disadvantages when used in MFCs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Improving the Electrochemical Properties of Carbon Paper as Cathodes for Microfluidic Fuel Cells by the Electrochemical Activation in Different Solutions

et al. 2021

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Membraneless microfluidic fuel cells (MFCs) have garnered tremendous interest as micropower devices, which exploit the colaminar nature of two aqueous electrolytes to separate the anode and cathode and avoid the membrane usually used in a fuel cell. Our previous research shows that the performance of FeCl3-based MFCs with catalyst-free cathodes is mainly limited by the cathode. To improve the power output of these MFCs, we activated the carbon paper cathode by an electrochemical method in the three solutions (Na2SO4, NaOH, and H2SO4) to improve the electrochemical characteristics of the carbon paper cathode. The surface functionalities and defects, reduction activation of iron ions as the oxidant, cathode resistance, and performance of FeCl3-based MFCs were measured and compared. Our work shows that the electrochemical activation of the carbon paper in different solutions is a simple and effective method to enhance the electrochemical characteristics of the carbon paper cathode and improve the performance of the FeCl3-based MFC. Also, the MFC with the carbon paper cathode activated in the H2SO4 solution reaches the optimum performance: 235.6 mW cm–3 in volumetric power density and 1063.33 mA cm–3 in volumetric limiting current density, which are 1.58 and 1.52 times as much as that of a MFC with an untreated carbon paper cathode, respectively. This best performance can be attributed to the cathode activated in the H2SO4 solution with the largest number of oxygen-containing functional groups, the largest electrochemical active surface area, strongest reduction of iron ions, and least resistance of the cathode.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the Electrochemical Properties of Carbon Paper as Cathodes for Microfluidic Fuel Cells by the Electrochemical Activation in Different Solutions

et al. 2021

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“…Chunmei Liu et al . explored the ways used to raise the performance of MFEFCs with a C fiber cathode 117 . Air annealing and acid oxidation were put into practice, and the scheme of combining the two means would obtain the best performance.…”

Section: Advances In Recent Yearsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Chunmei Liu et al explored the ways used to raise the performance of MFEFCs with a C fiber cathode. 117 Air annealing and acid oxidation were put into practice, and the scheme of combining the two means would obtain the best performance. They also studied the influences of different Fe salts on cell performance and confirmed best performance was reached when FeCl 3 was treated as an oxidant.…”

Section: Fabrication Technologies Of Mfefcsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advances in microfluidic electrochemical fuel cells in recent years

Ning

Zhao

Zhou

2022

J of Chemical Tech & Biotech

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Microfluidic fuel cells (MFFCs) are performing increasingly important roles in production and life, such as electronic products, sensors and real-time equipment. The microfluidic electrochemical fuel cell (MFEFC) is a significant type of MFFC that has attracted recent global attention. Compared to the other two types, biofuel cells (MFBFCs) and photocatalytic fuel cells (MFPFCs), MFEFCs can be used in a broader range of applications and are less susceptible to external environment. This paper mainly discusses the recent progress of MFEFCs, including catalyst, fuel, electrode, oxidant, design, fabrication, model and performance. The paper summarized the latest research results and practical applications through the above aspects. The authors sincerely hope that this paper will be useful to researchers in the field. Finally, we summarize the article and outline the potential future development and applications of MFEFCs.

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“…When the anolyte and catholyte flow towards the outlet, the fuel and oxidant are largely sequestered to their own sides of the microchannel . This unique feature brings a number of advantages to MFC over the conventional proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), such as removal of the need for a membrane, elimination of the membrane‐related problems, and decrease of the fabrication and maintenance cost . However, in the studies, it is found that the diffusion in the direction transverse to the flow creates a mixing region around the laminar interface where the solution contains both fuel and oxidant .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of a radial vanadium redox microfluidic fuel cell: A new way to break the size limitation

Bei

Liu

et al. 2019

Int J Energy Res

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Summary Microfluidic fuel cell (MFC) suffers from small single cell output power due to the inherent cell size limitation as microscale geometries are prerequisite to prevent reactant crossover between the anode and cathode. To meet the power demand of practical applications, previous works mainly focus on the creating of MFC stacks with multiple cells connected in series, parallel, or mixture of both series and parallel to increase the output power. Yet, low energy efficiency is observed because of the flow distribution nonuniformity and shunt current losses. In this work, a high performance radial vanadium redox MFC is presented to address the size limitation issue by adding a separate layer between the porous electrodes of the conventional plate‐frame MFC. Specific cell characteristics are detailed by mathematical modeling, and parametric studies are performed to evaluate the influences of the geometrical and operational parameters on the cell performance. The results show that this new radial MFC can provide a higher fuel utilization and meanwhile an improved cell performance under a fixed electrode size compared with the conventional plate‐frame MFC. Moreover, the electrode size limitation due to the reactant crossover between the anode and cathode is broken as the influences of the electrode size on the mixing region are greatly reduced. In the case with the electrode size equal to 18 mm × 18 mm, single cell output power of 0.35 mW with a fuel utilization of 53.33% is obtained under the reactant concentration of 2 mol L−1 and flow rate of 300 μL min−1.

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Enhancing the Performance of Microfluidic Fuel Cells by Modifying the Carbon-Fiber Paper Cathode by Air Annealing and Acid Oxidation

Cited by 13 publications

References 47 publications

Improving the Electrochemical Properties of Carbon Paper as Cathodes for Microfluidic Fuel Cells by the Electrochemical Activation in Different Solutions

Improving the Electrochemical Properties of Carbon Paper as Cathodes for Microfluidic Fuel Cells by the Electrochemical Activation in Different Solutions

Advances in microfluidic electrochemical fuel cells in recent years

Design of a radial vanadium redox microfluidic fuel cell: A new way to break the size limitation

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