Dr. Liang An

Abstract:

Liquid fuel cells, which promise to be a clean and efficient energy production technology, have recently attracted worldwide attention, primarily because liquid fuels offer many unique physicochemical properties including high energy density and ease of transportation, storage as well as handling. However, conventional liquid fuel cells use precious metal catalysts but result in rather low performance. Recently, a novel system using an electrically rechargeable liquid fuel (e-fuel) for energy storage and power generation has been recently proposed and demonstrated. The e-fuel is stated to be attainable from diverse kinds of materials such as inorganic materials, organic materials, and suspensions of particles. In our research, we energize fuel cells with this e-fuel. It is demonstrated that without using any catalysts for fuel oxidation, this fuel cell running on the e-fuel leads to a significant performance boost.