Alkaline Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell: Effect of the Anode Flow Field Design and the Setup Parameters on Performance

Alkaline direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) represent an efficient energy conversion device for sustainable ethanol fuel. In this study, a design with new structural parameters for the anodic flow field of the alkaline DEFC was modeled with the aid of computational fluid dynamics and was then actually constructed. Single-cell tests were performed to evaluate the impact of the developed design on fuel cell performance. The results show that fuel cell performance significantly increased when using the improved design in the low-temperature range. The higher the temperature in the cell, the lower the influence of the flow field structure on performance. In addition, the influence of external factors, such as the orientation of the cell, the preheating of the fuel, and the direction of the two fuel flows relative to each other (co-current and counter-current), are shown.