title: High-performance liquid-catalyst fuel cell for direct biomass-into-electricity conversion.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and RBI at Georgia Tech, Georgia Institute of Technology, 500 10th Street N.W., Atlanta, GA 30332-0620 (USA); College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University (China).
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Mu
authors.forename: Yulin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Deng
mesh_terms: D001674:Bioelectric Energy Sources; D018533:Biomass; D002384:Catalysis; D002482:Cellulose / Q000737:chemistry; D004560:Electricity; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D010100:Oxygen / Q000737:chemistry; D006109:Poaceae / Q000737:chemistry; D013213:Starch / Q000737:chemistry; D017973:Tungsten Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D000099294:Polyoxometalates
chemical_list: D002482:Cellulose; D010100:Oxygen; D013213:Starch; D017973:Tungsten Compounds; C102296:polyoxometalate I; D000099294:Polyoxometalates
keywords: biomass conversion; electrodes; liquid-catalyst fuel cells (LCFC); oxygen reduction; polyoxometalates