Evaluation of the fuel cell performances of TiO₂/PAN electrospun carbon-based electrodes

Electrocatalytic effect of the untreated and TiO₂+polyacrylonitrile (PAN) modified discarded battery coal (DBC) and pencil graphite electrodes (PGE) were evaluated in fuel cell (FC) applications. TiO₂+PAN solution is coated on PGE and DBC electrodes by electrospinning. According to the FESEM and EDS characterizations, TiO₂ and PAN nanofibers are found to be approximately 40 and 240 nm in size. TiO₂+PAN/PGE showed the best FC performances with 2.00 A cm^-2 current density and 5.05 W cm^-2 power density values, whereas TiO₂+PAN/DBC showed 0.68 A cm^-2 current density and 0.62 W cm^-2 power density values. Electrochemical characterizations of PGE and TiO₂+PAN/PGE electrodes were investigated by cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Finally, long-term FC measurement results of developed electrodes exhibited very reasonable recovery values. Along with the comparison of the electrode performances, the recovery of DBCs as electrodes for renewable energy production has been achieved.