Investigation of Ni Foam Effect for Direct Borohydride Fuel Cell

Ni foam has been used as a substrate for the anode electrocatalyst in our previous works. In this study, the effect of nickel foam as an anode electrode in direct borohydride cells has been investigated under steady state/steady-flow and uniform state/uniform-flow systems, since nickel has catalytic property. Cathode catalyst used has been 0.3 mg cm–2 on PTFE-treated Toray carbon paper. The results have showed that power densities have increased by increasing the temperature. Peak power densities of 5.01 and 9.55 mW cm–2 have been achieved at 25 and 60 °C, respectively, for 1.5 mol dm–3 NaBH4. On the other hand, the electrochemical performance has not been significantly different by the sodium borohydride concentration; only a small increase of power density has been observed in steady state/steady-flow system, and only a small decrease of fuel utilization ratio has been obtained in uniform state/uniform-flow systems.