Effect of ethanol concentration and cell orientation on the performance of passive direct ethanol fuel cell

Ethanol emerges as an alternative fuel since it has higher energy density, less toxic in nature, easy availability and can be produced from biomass. The passive Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell (DEFCs) has good potential to fulfill the power requirements of portable applications compared to methanol. However passive DEFCs are far away from acceptable power outputs due to their slow ethanol oxidation reaction and ethanol and water crossover. In this study a passive DEFC was design and fabricated. The 115 Nafion membrane with active area of 25cm
²
was used to identify the optimal working condition for ethanol feed concentration and cell orientations. It was found that 4M ethanol feed concentration gives optimal cell performance. It is observed that open circuit voltage (OCV) was independent of the cell orientation but it is affected by the ethanol feed concentration. The cell performance is also tested on cell orientation. Horizontal orientation yielded better performance compared to vertical orientation.