TOWARD CARBON FOAM STRUCTURES IN A MICROFLUIDIC FUEL CELL

摘要

In this paper, the design and performance of a flow-through microfluidic fuel cell with carbon-based electrodes is presented. Our preliminary results include the use of Toray TGP-H-090 carbon paper as our porous carbon electrodes. The cell exhibited a maximum power density of 0.12 mW/cm~2 and an open cell potential of 1.2 V, and a discussion of this performance is provided. The vanadium redox species is employed as fuel (V~(2+)) and oxidant (VO_2~+) due to its ability to naturally react on bare carbon, eliminating the need for additional catalysts. Our future work will include the investigation of carbon foam electrodes with grades of 45, 80, and 100 pores per linear inch (PPI).