Microfluidic electrochemistry flow and potential controllers

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Fuel cells are a developing technology for energy conversion. The use of alternative fuels such as ethanol, that can be derived from agricultural or other biomass sources, provides a way to be less reliant on oil for future energy needs. Molecules such as ethanol are more complicated than the established fuel cell fuels such as hydrogen and methanol. Therefore, understanding of how they operate and split up in fuel cells is more complicated. The equipment requested allows new microfluidic electrochemical methods to be developed to study these more complicated processes. The molecules are flowed down a very thin channel where they pass electrodes at different voltages. By measuring the currents at the different electrodes and how they depend on the voltages and flow rates, the mechanism of oxidation of the molecule can be determined. Experiments where two flows merge can also help to find out what is happening. For example suddenly changing from an inert fluid to the fluid with fuel means that the very first stages of interaction of the fuel with an electrode can be studied. Since electrodes sometimes deactivate quickly, this can be an important way to study the deactivation process and understand how to prevent it.