Liquid-feed direct oxidation fuel cells using neat 2-propanol as fuel

Neat 2-propanol was used as the fuel in liquid-feed direct oxidation fuel cells. The fuel that was intentionally not mixed with any amount of water was oxidized directly at the fuel cell anode. The fuel cell showed very good performance. For example, at a cell temperature of 60 °C and an air flow rate of 970 ml/min, the cell output voltage was as high as 0.485 V at a current density of 200 mA/cm2. This performance was among the highest numbers ever reported for liquid-feed direct oxidation fuel cells. The energy density of a fuel cell using a neat fuel is expected to be much higher than that of one using dilute fuel solutions because the latter needs to carry between 10 and 30 parts by weight of water for each part of alcohol.