Electrochemical performance of different carbon fuels on a hybrid direct carbon fuel cell

Abstract

In this work, three processed carbon fuels including activated carbon, carbon black and graphite have been employed to investigate influence of the chemical and physical properties of carbon on the HDCFC performance in different anode atmospheres at 650–800 °C. The results reveal that the electrochemical activity is strongly dependent on crystalline structure, thermal stability and textural properties of carbon fuels. The activated carbon samples demonstrate a better performance with a peak power density of 326 mW cm−2 in CO2 at 750 °C, compared to 147 and 59 mW cm−2 with carbon black and graphite samples, respectively. Compared to the ohmic resistance, the polarization resistance plays a more dominated role in the cell performance. When replacing N2 by CO2 purge gas, the power density is the strongly temperature dependent due to the Boudouard reaction.