A Facile Microfluidic Hydrogen Peroxide Fuel Cell with High Performance: Electrode Interface and Power-Generation Properties

To simplify the miniature fuel cell structure and flow mode, we report here a microfluidic fuel cell running on H2O2 as both fuel and oxidant under acidic conditions. Prussian blue coating on carbon paper serves as the cathode side while the anode is made of three-dimensional flow-through Ni foam. The fuel cell achieves a power density in excess of 0.58 ± 0.13 W m–2 at a current density of 3.68 ± 0.1 A m–2, and an open circuit potential of 0.65 V. Importantly, the Ni foam shows a corrosion in H2O2-catalyzing after a long-term operation, which is seriously neglected by most of previous H2O2-running fuel cells. SEM images and XPS spectra demonstrate a gradient corrosion occurs in the three-dimensional flow-through porous Ni-foam electrode. The corrosion degree of Ni foam gradually aggravates along the vertical direction, which is caused by the gradient accumulation of H2O in the porous electrode. The protection methods including surface coating a protection layer and doping some more reactive metals have been proposed to improve the system commercialization.