Ethanol electrooxidation reaction in alkaline media for direct ethanol fuel cells

This chapter provides a comprehensive review of the efforts in developing alkaline direct ethanol fuel cells to date. We present a bird's eye view of the current understanding of ethanol electrooxidation reaction (EOR) mechanism; the principles and strategies for rational catalyst design with a focus on tuning chemical composition, size, and structural morphologies of the mono- and bi-metallic nanoparticles; the use of metal oxides as alternatives to carbon supports, to the challenges and emerging opportunities moving forward. We show that we now have versatile tools to investigate the fundamental understanding of the reaction mechanism and there is excellent progress in the design of catalysts with specific structure and morphologies which paves way to rationally design catalyst with targeted properties. There awaits many opportunities for further study in the course of tailoring the selectivity of EOR towards cleaving the C–C bond.