AuPd/polyaniline as the anode in an ethylene glycol microfluidic fuel cell operated at room temperature

Arjona, Noé; Palacios, A; Moreno-Zuria, A.; Guerra‒Balcázar, Minerva; Ledesma‐García, J.; Arriaga, L.G.

doi:10.1039/c4cc03288h

Cited by 35 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…In microfluidic fuel cells, the use of ethylene glycol (EG) as well as glycerol has been sparse, and it could be related to the low performance by activity problems of electrocatalysts that are still found in PEM fuel cells. Arjona et al [56] published, for the first time, the use of ethylene glycol in a membraneless MFC with lateral flow. In this work, a metal mixture of AuPd supported on polyaniline was used as anode.…”

Section: Fuels and Performance Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microfluidics in Membraneless Fuel Cells

Díaz-Real¹,

Guerra‒Balcázar²,

Arjona³

et al. 2016

Advances in Microfluidics - New Applications in Biology, Energy, and Materials Sciences

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In the 1990s, the idea of developing miniaturized devices that integrate functions other than what normally are carried out at the laboratory level was conceived, and the socalled "lab-on-a-chip" (LOC) devices emerged as one of the most important research areas. LOC devices exhibit advantages related to the use of microfluidic channels such as small sample and reagent consumption, portability, low-power consumption, laminar flow, and higher surface area/volume ratio that enhances both thermal dissipation and electrochemical kinetics. Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert chemical energy to electrical energy. These are considered as one of the greener ways to generate electricity because typical fuel cells produce water and heat as the main reaction byproducts. The technical challenges to develop systems at the microscale and the advantages of microfluidics exhibited an important impact on fuel cells for several reasons, mainly related to avoid inherent problems of gaseous-based fuel cells. As a result, the birth of a new type of fuel cells as microfluidic fuel cells (MFCs) took place. The first microfluidic fuel cell was reported in 2002. This MFC was operated with liquid fuel/oxidant and had the advantage of the low laminar flow generated using a "Y" microfluidic channel to separate the anodic and cathodic streams, resulting in an energy conversion device that did not require a physical barrier to separate both streams. This electrochemical system originated a specific type of MFCs categorized as membraneless also called colaminar microfluidic fuel cells. Since that year, numerous works focused on the nature of fuels, oxidants and anodic/cathodic electrocatalysts, and cell designs have been reported. The limiting parameters of this kind of devices toward their use in portable applications are related to their low cell performances, small mass activity, and partial selectivity/durability of electrocatalysts. On the other hand, it has been observed that the cell design has a high effect on the cell performance due to internal cell resistances and the crossover effect. Furthermore, current technology is growing faster than last centuries and new microfabrication technologies are always emerging, allowing the development of smaller and more powerful microfluidic energy devices. In this chapter, the application of microfluidics in membraneless fuel cells is addressed in terms of evolution of cell designs of miniaturized microfluidic fuel cells as a result of new discoveries in microfabrication technology and the use of several fuels and electrocatalysts for specific and selective applications.

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Section: Fuels and Performance Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microfluidics in Membraneless Fuel Cells

Díaz-Real¹,

Guerra‒Balcázar²,

Arjona³

et al. 2016

Advances in Microfluidics - New Applications in Biology, Energy, and Materials Sciences

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“…[28][29][30] For the application of fuel cells, porous electrodes are highly advantageous for enhancing power density as such a structure offers high specific surface area, enabling fuel solution flow through anode to facilitate the electrochemical reaction. [31,32] For example, the peak power density of a microfluidic direct alcohol fuel cells fed by ethylene glycol increased from 1.6 mW cm −2 in a cell designed with flow over electrodes [33] to 20 mW cm −2 by using flow-through porous electrode configuration. [32] Hence, here, we propose to use polymerized high internal phase emulsions (polyHIPEs) for designing porous polymer substrates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skin‐Like Stretchable Fuel Cell Based on Gold‐Nanowire‐Impregnated Porous Polymer Scaffolds

Gong

Kong

et al. 2020

Small

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Such future soft wearable electronics or wearable 2.0 products [8] will not be viable unless efficient reliable and skin-conformal power sources are to be developed. Most of the current wearable electronics are powered by rigid and bulky lithium-ion battery. Although paper batteries are emerging as a thinner version candidate, [9] they are still based on conventional metallic materials, which are neither stretchable nor compressive, unable to conformally be attached onto human skin. Typical smart soft electronics including wearable glucose sensors, pressure sensors, and surface electromyography (sEMG) only require a voltage of <100 mV and a power consumption of <20 µW, which could be supplied by different types of energy devices. [10] In this context, a variety of soft energy devices based on nanomaterials including batteries, [11] supercapacitors, [12,13] solar cells, [14] triboelectric nanogenerators, [15] and fuel cells [16-18] have attracted tremendous attention as the potential replacement of the lithium-ion battery to power skin-like electronics. Each type of those energy devices has their own intrinsic pros and cons. Wearable supercapacitors cannot provide continuous long-term energy supplies; [12,13] the performance of wearable photovoltaic devices is highly dependent on the external light source; [14] and the wearable nanogenerators based on piezoelectric and triboelectric devices can only provide intermittent energy and must be integrated with energy storage devices for continuous long-term monitoring. [15] Stretchable enzymatic biofuel cell that uses glucose or lactic acid in the body fluid to generate energy has been considered as an environmentally friendly power source for the next-generation skin-like energy devices. However, its performance is largely dependent on the stability of the enzyme, which may be easily affected by body temperature, pH, and fuel concentrations. [19,20] In contrast, fuel cells that use ethanol or methanol as a model system could offer a much higher power density and stability as they are not influenced by the biological environments. [21] A number of materials including silver nanowires, [22] carbon fibers, [23] graphene paper, [24] nickel foam, [25] vertically aligned gold nanowires (V-AuNWs) [26] have been demonstrated to fabricate flexible or even stretchable fuel cells. Nevertheless, high power output, skin-like device thickness, Skin-like energy devices can be conformally attached to the human body, which are highly desirable to power soft wearable electronics in the future. Here, a skin-like stretchable fuel cell based on ultrathin gold nanowires (AuNWs) and polymerized high internal phase emulsions (polyHIPEs) scaffolds is demonstrated. The polyHIPEs can offer a high porosity of 80% yet with an overall thickness comparable to human skin. Upon impregnation with electronic inks containing ultrathin (2 nm in diameter) and ultrahigh aspect-ratio (>10 000) gold nanowires, skin-like strain-insensitive stretchable electrodes are successfully fabricated. With such designed ...

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“…8,[11][12][13] Recently, several strategies have been proposed to improve the electrolyte wettability of polyolefin separators including physical coating and chemical modification. [17][18][19] In addition, PANI has been reported to possess affinity towards carbon nanotubes, 20 water soluble molecules, 21 heavy metal ions, 22 N-methyl-2pyrrolidone, 23 and Au 3+ reduction, 24 which means PANI has potential for improving the electrolyte wettability of polyolefin separators. 14 However, the physical coating layers are normally unstable in the electrolyte, which could easily delaminate from the separator.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In terms of functional modification, polyaniline (PANI) is a kind of conductive polymer, and it has been widely applied in LIBs and supercapacitors owning to its easy synthesis, low cost, and environmental stability. [17][18][19] In addition, PANI has been reported to possess affinity towards carbon nanotubes, 20 water soluble molecules, 21 heavy metal ions, 22 N-methyl-2pyrrolidone, 23 and Au 3+ reduction, 24 which means PANI has potential for improving the electrolyte wettability of polyolefin separators.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A sandwich‐structured separator based on in situ coated polyaniline on polypropylene membrane for improving the electrolyte wettability in lithium‐ion batteries

Hao

Zhang

et al. 2019

Int J Energy Res

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Summary Designing separators with excellent electrolyte wettability is of great significance to improve the electrochemical behavior of lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs). Herein, we develop a sandwich‐structured separator by facile in situ polymerization of polyaniline (PANI) on the both sides of polypropylene (PP) separator. The introduction of PANI coating improves the electrolyte wettability of the PP separators. Consequently, the cells equipped with this sandwich‐structured separator demonstrate superior electrochemical performance including initial capacity, rate performance, and cyclic stability compared with the PP separator. This work may provide a facile approach for separator modification to improve the performance of LIBs.

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AuPd/polyaniline as the anode in an ethylene glycol microfluidic fuel cell operated at room temperature

Abstract: AuPd/polyaniline was used for the first time, for ethylene glycol (EG) electrooxidation in a novel microfluidic fuel cell (MFC) operated at room temperature. The device exhibits high electrocatalytic performance and stability for the conversion of cheap and fully available EG as fuel.

Cited by 35 publications

References 25 publications

Microfluidics in Membraneless Fuel Cells

Microfluidics in Membraneless Fuel Cells

Skin‐Like Stretchable Fuel Cell Based on Gold‐Nanowire‐Impregnated Porous Polymer Scaffolds

A sandwich‐structured separator based on in situ coated polyaniline on polypropylene membrane for improving the electrolyte wettability in lithium‐ion batteries

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