Abstract:
The effect of the cell activation method on direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC) performance was
investigated. The work was divided into 4 steps: the comparison between the cell activation using
hydrogen and ethanol, the influence of voltage and gas pressure in DEFC activation using hydrogen
gas, the interchange between the anode and cathode gas, and the use of multi-step activation method
(activation in the sequence staring from ethanol at 0.3 V, ethanol at 0.1 V and hydrogen gas at 0.6
V). From the experimental results, it was found that the performance of the cell activated by
hydrogen gas was higher than that activated by ethanol solution. For DEFC activation using
hydrogen gas, a better cell performance was obtained under the condition of high gas pressure and
low activation voltage. Furthermore, there was no influence of anode / cathode gas alternation on
the cell performance. Feeding oxygen gas into the anode did not improve the cell performance and
equivalent power densities were observed with these two cells. In addition, the multistep activation
method provided the highest cell performance with the average power density of 20 mW/cm2
(About 1.4 times the power density obtained from the cell activated by hydrogen gas).