The commercialization of Direct Ethanol Fuel Cells (DEFCs) is still hindered because of economic and
technical reasons. Fundamental scientific research is required to more completely understanding the
complex electrochemical behavior and engineering technology of DEFCs. To use the DEFC system in realworld
applications, fast, reliable, and cost-effective methods are needed to explore this complex phenomenon
and to predict the performance of different system designs. Thus, modeling and simulation
play an important role in examining the DEFC system as well as in designing an optimized DEFC system.
The current DEFC literature shows that modeling studies on DEFCs are still in their early stages and are
not able to describe the DEFC system as a whole. Potential DEFC applications and their current status are
also presented.