Hello,
for a fuel cell project I need an oxidation agent, that will in its reduced form react with molecular oxygen to oxidize itself just like metal oxides, nitrate salts and and redox mediators. The problem I see is that it has to be cheap, non poisonous and water soluble. Any ideas what I could use?
Your question is not clear. What reaction are you asking about? in its reduced form react with molecular oxygen" Activation of dioxygen is a very difficult process.
I am of course talking about a oxidation reaction, but I'll explain more.
I am working on an ascorbic acid fuel cell that neither needs electrolyte additives (f.e KOH/NaOH, acids) nor is very expensive. Yet I have great results with ~20mA/cm^2 which is the best value for ascorbic acid I have seen in researches so far. The best is that it doesn't even use an anode catalyst because of the autoxidation. As cathode catalyst I have used MnO2, KMnO4 and yesterday Fe(III) sulphate as well as chloride. I think the iron(III) compound may be very promising because it is relatively cheap, regenerative by O2 and shows yet a high performance.
So the reaction looks a bit like this (AsA is ascorbic acid and dAsA is dehydrogenated)
FeCl3 + AsA --> FeCl2 + HCl + dAsA
of course water needs to be involved or the reaction won't work.
When the cathode is used up, it may be regenerated like this:
FeCl2 + HCl +O2 --> FeCl3 + H2O
since the acid will not get used up, it will be able to form FeCl3 again by bubling oxygen through the solution or simply shaking it in air atmosphere.
My goal is to produce a portable redox flow fuel cell powered lamp.
Yet my cell produces about 0,8V, but I hope the use of another regenerative catalyst may increase the voltage because Fe(III) reduction/oxidation has a very low potential of +-0,04V
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