New Catalysts Will Get Cellphones Running on Acid
Baku, May 30 (AZERTAC). Physicist Florian Nitze at the Umeå University, Sweden, has developed several new catalysts that improve the capacity of the fuel cells, making it possible to use relatively environmentally friendly formic acid in fuel cell powering your mobile phone or laptop.
Fuel cells are different from batteries in that they require a constant source of fuel and oxygen to run. The technology is already commercially available but formic acid fuel cells still suffer from low power and lifetime.
The effect of a catalyst is to reduce the energy loss and to increase the rate of the chemical reactions, which leads to a higher efficiency in the fuel cell.
If for example hydrogen and oxygen (but equally valid for formic acid and oxygen) get in contact, they can burn and release a lot of energy. In this process hydrogen gives electrons to oxygen, it is oxidized whereas oxygen takes electrons from hydrogen, it is reduced.
The idea of a fuel cell is to separate these two reactions spatially into two separate reactions, namely oxidation and reduction. The energy that would have been released by burning can now be used as electric power if the two separated reactions are connected electrically. However, not all energy can be used; some energy is needed to keep the reaction running. Catalysts can lower this energy loss and speed up the reactions resulting in a higher efficiency of the fuel cell.
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