The oxygen reduction reaction at a manganese dioxide cathode in alkaline medium is studied using cyclic voltarnmetry and by measuring volume of oxygen consumed at the cathode. The performance of the manganese dioxide cathode is also determined in the presence of fuel and an alkali mixture with a standard Pt/Ni anode in a flowing alkaline-electrolyte fuel cell. The fuels tested are methanol, ethanol and sodium borohydride (1 M), while 3 M KOH is used as the electrolyte. The performance of the fuel cell is measured in terms of open-circuit voltage and current-potential characteristics. A single peak in the cyclic voltammogram. suggests that a four-electron pathway mechanism prevails during oxygen reduction. This is substantiated by calculating the number of electrons involved per molecule of oxygen that are reacted at the MnO2 cathode from the oxygen consumption data for different fuels. The results show that the power density of the fuel cell increases with increase in MnO2 loading to a certain limit but then decreases with further loading. The maximum power density is obtained at 3 mg cm(-2) of MnO2 for each of the three different fuels. (C) 2004 Elsevier BX All rights reserved.