Evaluations of Australian coals as fuel for carbon fuel cell

Abstract Coal fuel used in a carbon fuel cell (CFC) for generating power is of growing interest due to high conversion efficiency. As coal continues to remain an important energy source for the next few decades, the development of technology that can use coal more efficiently thus leading to significant reduction in CO2 is critical. Most of the investigations conducted so far with CFCs use extensive cleaning of the coals such as acid treatment and catalytic materials as additives to achieve high power densities, resulting in increase to the cost of electricity produced by this technology. In this study, Australian coals were evaluated without any chemical pre-treatment in a CFC comprised of a scandia–zirconia tubular electrolyte with symmetrical Ce0.9Gd0.1O2–Ag electrodes. The performance was monitored for over 10 h, and power densities of over 290 mW cm−2 were obtained. Post-mortem analysis of cell components showed no sign of reactivity between electrodes and fuel.