International Journal of Renewable Energy Resources

Carbon Monoxide-Resistant Anode Catalysts for Single-Cell Direct Carbon Monoxide Fuel Cells: Platinum-Ruthenium Anode Electrocatalysts

2023-10-17T20:11:43+08:00

The objective of this paper is to present the results of experimentations on the state-of-the-art anode electrocatalysts and the membrane-electrode assemblies (MEAs) developed for direct carbon monoxide fuel cells (DCMFCs). The custom-made platinum-ruthenium (Pt-Ru) MEAs along with a commercial MEA were tested to evaluate the impacts of cell temperature, different types of fuel and oxidant, the flow rate of fuel and oxidant, and humidification temperature on the performance of the MEAs. It was shown that both the catalyst manufacturing process and the test procedure are repeatable. Also, it was shown that the performance of Pt-Ru cells when fueled by CO and CO-containing fuels was markedly inferior to that of hydrogen-fueled fuel cells. However, there were some promising signs that with the right catalysts and optimum operating conditions, the performance of DCMFCs can be significantly improved. It was also shown that increasing the operating temperature always improved the performance. While increasing the flow rates of the reactants improved the performance of the MEAs, there was a limit to this improvement. Furthermore, generally speaking, the performance of the MEAs was better when fed with CO rather than CO-N₂ and O₂ rather than air but the actual impact depended on other operating conditions.

Partial Shading Effect on Power Generation of BIPV System in Bangladesh

2022-12-28T15:10:52+08:00

The research tries to observe the power difference for the PV module in the case of the partial and void of partial shading in Bangladesh. For analysis of the partial shading effect on the PV module it is necessary to establish an experiment set up for the PV module. To investigate the power output from PV module the partial shading effect has been generated using the paper coverage. The experimental result shows that the photovoltaic module can generate up to 41% more power output in the case of the void of the shading effect rather than in the shading effect. Around 50% portion of the PV module has been shaded for making partial shading effect. The other important factors influencing the output power of the PV module are solar irradiance, cell temperature; ideality factor. To get the maximum output it is essential to avoid shading effect which will help to generate more power. In this paper, MATLAB simulation of PV module has been done showing the partial shading effect under consideration of various factors like series resistance, ideality factor, temperature. Partial shading effect has been created by varying the level of solar radiation. An experiment has been carried out to see the overall performance of PV module under shading effect at a fixed tilt angle.

Carbon Monoxide-Resistant Anode Catalysts for Single-Cell Direct Carbon Monoxide Fuel Cells: Binary, Ternary, And Quaternary Platinum Alloys as Anode Electrocatalysts

2023-12-11T11:52:23+08:00

The objective of this paper is to present the results of experimentations on the custom-made anode electrocatalysts for direct carbon monoxide fuel cells (DCMFCs) inspired by catalysts commonly used for direct alcohol fuel cells. Seven different catalysts were fabricated and tested. The uniform and consistent manufacturing process and the test procedure allowed a meaningful comparison of the developed fuel cells. The results indicated that homemade Pt-Ru membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) could not compete with the Pt-Sn MEA. While the performance of the MEAs with Pt-Ru-Ni, Pt-Ru-Sn-Ni, and Pt-Ru-Sn-Co was not satisfactory, the Pt-Ru-Sn-Co-W MEA achieved the best performance among all MEAs with Nafion^® 117 membrane. The last MEA was made of the Pt-Sn anode catalyst and Nafion^® 212 membrane and outperformed all other MEAs by a wide margin. The experiments demonstrated that the performance of the best-developed MEA was three times better than the performance of the commercial Pt-Ru MEA. This means the performance of DCMFCs can be significantly improved by developing a suitable anode electrocatalyst, using a thinner membrane, and operating at optimum conditions. These results are not only applicable for DCMFCs but also are very useful for other proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) operating with CO-containing fuels.