Electricity Production Performance Of A Two-chamber Direct Glucose Alkaline Membrane Fuel Cell

Glucose,as a fairly abundant biomass in the world,which is cheap,nonpoisonous,easy to get and save,convenient to transport and pollution-free to environment,and for these reasons it has been studied as the fuel for fuel cell in a wide range.In previous work,with foam nickel as anode materials and methyl viologen as an electron mediator,we have built a single-room glucose alkaline fuel cell.Although the performance of this cell is good,there are still two problems.One is that the free-style form of methyl viologen which is cannot be reused improving the cell's operating costs.Another problem is that the toxicity of methyl viologen will make it produce ecological risks after emissions into the environment.In this paper,we use anion exchange membrane(AEM)to construct a twochamber alkaline fuel cell.With nickel foam as the anode,air-diffusion electrode as cathode and the cathode chamber and anode chamber is separated by the AEM.With glucose as the fuel,methyl viologen(MV)as electron transfer mediator,in the alkaline electrolyte to study the influence factors such as concentration of glucose,methyl viologen(MV),KOH and ambient temperature on the cell performance.The results show that the maximum power density can reach 5.20 W/m2 based on 1 M glucose,3 M KOH and 15 mM MV at room temperature.And within the appropriate range,the cell's power density can be improved with the increasing of glucose,KOH,and MV's concentration and higher ambient temperature.Oxidation-reduction products of the fuel cell are small organic molecules.On the basis of this study,the paper further improved the anode and immobilized MV to make a methyl viologen modified nickel foam anode(MV-Ni),and make it possible to reuse the MV.The use of MV-Ni anode not only reduces operating costs of fuel cell,but also avoids the harm of methyl viologen emissions on the environment.We test the stability of the MV-Ni anode in the different concentration of KOH and study the influence of the amount of MV on the cell performance contained in this MV-Ni.The result shows that the MV-Ni anode used in the twochamber alkaline fuel cell can greatly improve the cell performance.Under conditions of 1 M glucose and 3 M KOH,the cell's maximum power density can reach 24.16 W/m2 based on the MV-Ni anode within which the mass ratio of MV and activated carbon is 3: 1.The discharge curves show that the homemade anode can not only improve the cell performance but also raise specific capacity greatly.And the MV-Ni anode shows good reproducibility and stability.Finally,HPLC(high performance liquid chromatography)was used to determine the redox products of glucose.