LAUSR

The concept of catalyst-selective membraneless direct liquid fuel cell (DLFC) has recently been proposed and has successfully been demonstrated with a number of alcohol or formate fuels. However, there is a critical anolyte-poisoning issue in the previous membraneless alkaline DLFC systems due to CO2 formation upon the oxidation of liquid fuels. This study demonstrates a new membraneless DLFC system with isopropanol as an anode fuel. The dehydrogenation of isopropanol generates mainly acetone rather than CO2 as a product, which eliminates the CO2-poisoning concerns. Operation of the membraneless direct isopropanol fuel cells (DIPAFCs) is principally based on the high catalytic selectivity of the cathode catalyst which exhibits high catalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) but no activity for the isopropanol oxidation reaction (IPAOR). The highly selective cathode catalysts demonstrated in this study are spinel MnCo2O4 or MnNiCoO4 oxide nanoparticles coupled to a multiwall carbon nanotube...