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High‐Performance Liquid‐Catalyst Fuel Cell for Direct Biomass‐into‐Electricity Conversion
Author(s) -
Liu Wei,
Mu Wei,
Deng Yulin
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.201408226
Subject(s) - cellulose , biomass (ecology) , catalysis , microbial fuel cell , chemical engineering , raw material , liquid fuel , chemistry , power density , materials science , metal , oxide , waste management , organic chemistry , electrode , combustion , power (physics) , oceanography , physics , engineering , quantum mechanics , anode , geology
Herein, we report high‐performance fuel cells that are catalyzed solely by polyoxometalate (POM) solution without any solid metal or metal oxide. The novel design of the liquid‐catalyst fuel cells (LCFC) changes the traditional gas–solid‐surface heterogeneous reactions to liquid‐catalysis reactions. With this design, raw biomasses, such as cellulose, starch, and even grass or wood powders can be directly converted into electricity. The power densities of the fuel cell with switchgrass (dry powder) and bush allamanda (freshly collected) are 44 mW cm −2 and 51 mW cm −2 respectively. For the cellulose‐based biomass fuel cell, the power density is almost 3000 times higher than that of cellulose‐based microbial fuel cells. Unlike noble‐metal catalysts, POMs are tolerant to most organic and inorganic contaminants. Therefore, almost any raw biomass can be used directly to produce electricity without prior purification.