System design and performance in alkaline direct ethanol fuel cells

Fuel cells that convert the chemical energy stored in a fuel into an electrical energy by electrochemical reactions have been recognized as one of the most promising technologies for the clean energy industry of the future, especially for alkaline direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs), because ethanol is less toxic than methanol and can be massively produced from agricultural products or biomass, in addition to the advantage of high specific energy and quicker electro-kinetics of both the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline media. A considerable amount of effort has been devoted to the development of alkaline membranes and electro-catalystsin alkaline DEFCs, including synthesis of anion-exchange membrane and electro-catalysts, and the mechanism study of both the anodic EOR and cathodic ORR. For given materials, the improvement of the cell performance, however, depends mainly on the system design. This chapter provides a brief review of the development of alkaline DEFCs from the point of view of the system.