The behavior of palladium catalysts in direct formic acid fuel cells

Previous work has considered the behavior of platinum based catalysts in direct methanol and Direct Formic Acid Fuel Cells (DFAFCs). In this paper, we explore the behavior of palladium-based anode catalyst for DFAFCs. The palladium catalysts produce significant performance enhancements. DFAFCs operated with dry air and zero back-pressure can generate power densities of 255∼230 mW cm−2 at relatively high voltages of 0.40∼0.50 V in a concentration range of formic acid from 3.0 to 15.0 M at a room temperature of 20 °C, which are not quite different from a hydrogen-air polymer exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell with power density of 320 mW cm−2 obtained under the comparable conditions, and much higher than a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) with power density of 50 mW cm−2. The stability of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) with palladium catalyst has also been evaluated. There is some decay in performance over several hours. However, the performance loss of DFAFCs can be fully recovered by applying a positive potential at the fuel cell anode after short-term life test. These results demonstrate that DFAFCs with palladium anode catalyst have exceptional properties for portable power applications.