Journal of Power Sources 136 (2004) 208–210 Expanded graphite as an electrode material for an alcohol fuel cell Arup Bhattacharya, Ashoke Hazra, Someswar Chatterjee, Pratik Sen, Soumi Laha, I. Basumallick ∗ Electrochemical Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan 731235, India Available online 18 May 2004 Abstract An efficient graphite electrode has been developed using expanded graphite as the starting material. A graphite plate has been expanded by doping with potassium vapour using a vapour incorporation technique developed at our laboratory. The extent of expansion of the electrode plate is about 20% of its initial thickness. These expanded graphite electrodes have been platinized by an electrodeposition method. The electrocatalytic activity of platinized expanded graphite has been examined, and the discharge profile of a conventional laboratory model fuel cell comprising a platinized Pt air cathode, expanded platinized graphite anode and sulphuric acid (2 M) as electrolyte has been measured. Analysis of the electrochemical parameters of the laboratory model cell clearly indicates that the expanded Pt graphite electrode shows better electrochemical behaviour towards methanol (1 M), ethanol (1 M) and propanol (1 M) oxidation than that of unexpanded graphite electrodes. The results are explained in terms of efficient electrocatalytic activity of the nano channel formed after the expansion. These electrodes are expected to have promising applications in fuel cells. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Expanded graphite anode; Alcohol fuel cell; Electro-catalysts 1. Introduction Interest in fuel cell research was significantly enhanced after its identification as a possible alternate power source for automobiles [1–4]. In alcohol fuel cells additional ad- vantages are that alcohols are liquid fuels and they can be obtained from renewable biomass sources [4]. Among al- cohols, the methanol fuel cell has been widely investigated [4] but relatively few studies are reported on ethanol and 2-propanol fuel cells. The reaction that occurs at the an- ode is the oxidation of fuel by a suitable electro-catalyst. However, the major problems of fuel cells are poisoning of the electro-catalyst [5] even with Pt as the catalyst and its cross over from anode to cathode compartment [6]. Besides electro-catalyst, the carbon material used as catalytic support also plays an important role in dictating fuel cell efficiency. In conventional fuel cells, sheet type graphite electrodes are used, as they are convenient to be stacked in the batteries. To our knowledge this is the first time that expanded graphite has been used in fuel cell development. Earlier [7] we have used expanded graphite as an electrode for Li-ion batteries. In the present research we report behaviour of laboratory model alcohol fuel cell with platinized expanded graphite as ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: ibasumallick@yahoo.co.uk (I. Basumallick). anode material and methanol, ethanol and 2-propanol as fuel. It may be mentioned that the use of such expanded graphite [7] as electrode material for Li-ion cells has improved the lithium intercalation ability many fold. 2. Experimental 2.1. Electrodes The anode was a 10 mm 2 graphite plate of thickness 3.8 mm obtained from the R&D of BHEL, India. Graphite electrodes were expanded using a technique developed at our laboratory (Fig. 1) [7]. The graphite plate was Fig. 1. Expansion of graphite plate using K-vapour: (A) solid block of potassium; (B) graphite electrode. 0378-7753/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2004.03.003