A systematic study of operational parameters on performance and ethanol crossover of direct ethanol fuel cell by design of experiment

ABSTRACT

Direct ethanol fuel cells are promising technologies for zero-carbon energy production. Operating the cell properly both at the anode and cathode is a critical step in achieving high cell performance. In this research, the significance of the anode operating parameters compared to that of the cathode on the cell performance and fuel crossover was investigated by using a full factorial design of experiment. The factors considered were cell temperature, ethanol flow rate and concentration, and oxygen flow rate and concentration. The analysis of variance showed that the anode operating parameters had contributed more to the direct ethanol fuel cell’s performance and the ethanol crossover than did the cathode operating parameters. The three most influential parameters, enhancing both the power density and the ethanol crossover, were the cell temperature, ethanol concentration, and their interaction. The increases in the oxygen flow rate and concentration alleviated the negative effect on the ethanol crossover.

KEYWORDS:

• Direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC)
• full factorial design of experiment (DOE)
• cell performance
• ethanol crossover
• operating parameters

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT), Thailand. P.E. would like to acknowledge the facility support from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Research and Engineering Center,  KMUTT.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).