title: Solar-induced direct biomass-to-electricity hybrid fuel cell using polyoxometalates as photocatalyst and charge carrier.
abstract: The current polymer-exchange membrane fuel cell technology cannot directly use biomass as fuel. Here we present a solar-induced hybrid fuel cell that is directly powered with natural polymeric biomasses, such as starch, cellulose, lignin, and even switchgrass and wood powders. The fuel cell uses polyoxometalates as the photocatalyst and charge carrier to generate electricity at low temperature. This solar-induced hybrid fuel cell combines some features of solar cells, fuel cells and redox flow batteries. The power density of the solar-induced hybrid fuel cell powered by cellulose reaches 0.72 mW cm(-2), which is almost 100 times higher than cellulose-based microbial fuel cells and is close to that of the best microbial fuel cells reported in literature. Unlike most cell technologies that are sensitive to impurities, the cell reported in this study is inert to most organic and inorganic contaminants present in the fuels.
authors: 1] School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and IPST at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, 500 10th Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0620, USA [2] College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Chemometrics and Chemical Biological Sensing Technologies, Ministry of Education, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Liu
authors: School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and IPST at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, 500 10th Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0620, USA.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Mu
authors: School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and IPST at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, 500 10th Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0620, USA.
authors: Mengjie
authors: M
authors: Liu
authors: School of Materials Science and Engineering and IPST at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, 500 10th Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0620, USA.
authors: Xiaodan
authors: X
authors: Zhang
authors: School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and IPST at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, 500 10th Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0620, USA.
authors: Hongli
authors: H
authors: Cai
authors: School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and IPST at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, 500 10th Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0620, USA.
authors: Yulin
authors: Y
authors: Deng
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D018533:Biomass; D002384:Catalysis; D004579:Electron Transport; D006358:Hot Temperature; D011522:Protons; D012993:Solar Energy; D013213:Starch / Q000737:chemistry; D013472:Sunlight; D017973:Tungsten Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D000099294:Polyoxometalates
chemical_list: D011522:Protons; D013213:Starch; D017973:Tungsten Compounds; C102296:polyoxometalate I; D000099294:Polyoxometalates