Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
Siek-Ting Yong1, Shu-Hong Lim1, Chien-Wei Ooi1, Siang-Piao Chai1, Veena Doshi2 and Wan Ramli Wan Daud3
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl
Direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) is a type of fuel cell which produces electricity through electrochemical oxidation of solid carbon
into carbon dioxide, without involving combustion reaction. The most promising advantage of DCFC is its remarkably high
theoretical efficiency in converting chemical energy into electricity which is close to 100%. Its overall system efficiency taking into
account of auxiliary losses is in the range of 60-70%, as compared to less than 40% for a Carnot Cycle. In this work, palm waste
was tested as a sustainable carbon source for DCFC while carbon black was used as a reference for comparison. Palm shell was
pyrolyzed at different temperatures (400, 600, 800 and 1000 °C) to produce palm shell biochar. Analytical techniques including
XRD, microporous CO2 adsorption, proximate and ultimate analyseswere employed to characterize the palm shell biochar. The
electrochemical performance of all samples in DCFC was also evaluated. The results showed that palm shell pyrolyzed at 600 °C
yielded the highest power density, almost 19 folds of that achieved by carbon black. This superior performance was attributed
to its abundance of carbon available as fuel source, and large numbers of active sites available for the electrochemical reaction.
Siek-Ting Yong obtained her PhD degree in Chemical Engineering from the National University of Singapore. She is a senior Lecturer in Monash University
Malaysia Campus. Her research interests include fuel reforming, direct carbon fuel cell, carbon capture, and membrane separation.