Performance characterization of air-breathing anion-exchange membrane direct glucose fuel cells

The cell performance of air-breathing anion-exchange membrane (AEM) direct glucose duel cell (DGFC) with Pt-free electrodes is designed and investigated experimentally. The results indicated that the performance of the in-house fabricated AEM-DGFC is superior to the microbial fuel cell and the proton-exchange membrane direct glucose fuel cell. The peak power density of the AEM-DGFC yields as high as 20.8 mW·cm^-2, while the maximum current density of 156 mA·cm^-2 is obtained. Effects of the glucose concentration and KOH concentration were also investigated. It was shown that 0.7 M was the optimized glucose concentration for the performance of the air-breathing AEM-DGFC, and the performance can be further improved with the concentration of KOH increasing from 2 M to 4 M.