Prospective direct formate fuel cell

A direct formate fuel cell (DFFC) operated with a fuel of alkaline potassium formate has been studied using Pd anode and Ag cathode electrocatalysts in an intermediate temperature range of 80 to 120 degrees C by means of cyclic voltammetry and single cell measurements. Voltammetric studies clearly show that the kinetics of the formate electrooxidation on Pd in alkaline media is substantially increased with increasing temperature, leading to a high apparent activation energy of around 74.3 +/- 6.2 kJ mol(-1). Preliminary single cell measurements show that increasing operating temperature and the formate concentration obviously increase the performance. A DFFC operated with 6 mol dm(-3) HCOOK and at 120 degrees C demonstrates a peak power density of around 160 mW cm(-2) over a current density range of 250 to 550 mA cm(-2) without Ohmic resistance correction. The DFFC is therefore a promising high performance, environmentally benign and low cost fuel cell technology. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.