Effect of acid and alkaline media on membrane less fuel cell using sodium borohydride as fuel

Abstract

A membrane less fuel cell has been fabricated using sodiumborohydride as the fuel and sodium perborate as the oxidizerin an acid and alkaline media configuration. Differentoperating conditions were used to assess the performanceof this fuel cell. At room temperature, the laminar flow-basedmembrane less fuel cell was found to reach a maximumpower density of 27.75 mW cm−2 using 0.15 M NaBH4 in3 M NaOH solution as the fuel and 0.15 M perborate in1.5 M H2SO4 solution as the oxidant. No proton exchangemembrane is used in the cell. This simple membrane lessfuel cell with a planar structure has a high design flexibility,which enables its easy integration into actual microfluidicsystems and portable power applications.