Page 73 - Book of Abstracts

th
8 Biannual Conference on Chemistry - CHEM 08

Driving Toward a Clean Sustainable Society: Nanocatalysis
of Formic Acid Electro-Oxidation in the Direct Formic Acid
Fuel Cells

Ahmad Mahmoud Mohammad ,*, Islam Mahmoud Al-Akraa
2
1
1 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Cairo
12613, Egypt, Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of
2
Engineering, The British University in Egypt, Cairo 11837, Egypt.
Email: ammohammad@cu.edu.eg

ABSTRACT

The desire to drive into "sustainability" and the environmental legislations to
minimize the harmful emissions, particularly from the traditional combustions
of fossil fuels, has intensively steered research to explore clean renewable energy
sources. In this respect, fuel cells (FCs) technology has emerged as a potential
alternative to fossil fuels with the desire of fulfilling the ever-increasing demand
of electrical power in industry and daily-living activities. Herein, advances of the
development of efficient and stable nanostructured anodes for the formic acid
electro-oxidation (FAO); the principal anodic reaction in the direct formic acid
fuel cells (DFAFCs) will be outlined. In fact, the DFAFCs represent a convenient
replacement for the traditional hydrogen fuel cells (HFCs) in harvesting clean
electricity for several portable and stationary applications. While HFCs
experience troubles with the H2 use, storage and transportation, the DFAFCs
enabled the direct use of liquid fuels without a reformer (a reactor for
H2 production) and offered the potential for enhanced cell performance by
lowering the fuel crossover. However, unfortunately, the catalytic activity of
platinum (that typically represents the anodic catalyst in DFAFCs) deteriorates
rapidly due to the accumulation of poisoning CO. This consumes the active Pt
sites, which are supposed to participate in the corresponding anodic reactions;
lowering significantly the overall cell efficiency. We will outline our recent
achievements to mitigate the CO poisoning that will probably pave the road of
DFAFCs for a quick industrialization. Binary and sometimes ternary
modifications of Pt nanoparticles with metal (principally gold) nanoparticles and
several transition metal oxide nanostructures (e.g., manganese oxide, nickel
oxide, cobalt oxide, etc.) were sought. The strong adsorption of CO on Pt surfaces
could be tuned either geometrically or electronically, which in turns, improved
the kinetics of formic acid electro-oxidation. The catalytic enhancement is
analyzed by the state-of-the-art tools of characterization and the results are
promising to sustain a future prosperity.

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