Direct octane fuel cells: A promising power for transportation

CATEGORY: FUEL CELLS
Nano Energy, Volume 1, Issue 3, May 2012, Pages 448–455
Direct octane fuel cells: A promising power for transportation
Mingfei Liua
YongMan Choi b
Lei Yang a
Kevin Blinn a
Wentao Qin a
Ping Liu b
Meilin Liu  
a School of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Innovative Fuel Cell and Battery Technologies, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0245, USA
b Chemistry Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA
c World Class University (WCU) Program, UNIST, South Korea
Abstract
Describes a multi-functional anode for SOFCs allowing direct utilization of transportation fuels (iso-octane) without co-feeding O2 and CO2.
Development and commercialization of SOFCs is problematic due tothe high cost of hydrogen fueled SOFC systems and the deactivation of Ni-YSZ anodes in hydrocarbon fuels.  Researchers created a multi-functional anode from a conventional NiO-YSZ anode with BaCO3 modification in the anode support, creating a catalytically active conformal coating of BaZr1−xYxO3−δ (BZY) on YSZ and nano-islands of BaO on Ni surface.  This promoted reforming of octane and oxidation of the reformed fuels.
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