Factors that Determine the Performance of Carbon Fuels in the Direct Carbon Fuel Cell

The direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) is a promising power generation device, which has a much higher efficiency (80%) and a lower emission than conventional coal-fired power plants. In this study, different commercial carbon fuels including activated carbon (AC), carbon black (CB220 and CB660), and gr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Li, X., Zhu, Z., De Marco, Roland, Dicks, A., Bradley, J., Liu, S., Lu, G.
Format: Journal Article
Published: American Chemical Society 2008
Subjects:
Online Access:http://pubs.acs.org/journal/iecred
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/36102
Description
Summary:The direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) is a promising power generation device, which has a much higher efficiency (80%) and a lower emission than conventional coal-fired power plants. In this study, different commercial carbon fuels including activated carbon (AC), carbon black (CB220 and CB660), and graphitic carbon (GC) were tested in DCFC at 600-800 C. The relationship between the intrinsic properties of carbon fuels and their electrochemical performance in the DCFC was analyzed. It is found that a desirable carbon fuel for DCFC should have high mesoporous surface area and rich oxygen-containing surface groups. The anodic performance of the DCFC may also be improved by small carbon particle size, fast stirring rates, and high cell temperatures.