Journal
JOURNAL OF MICROMECHANICS AND MICROENGINEERING
Volume 29, Issue 7, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6439/ab1db7
Keywords
passive micro-direct methanol fuel cell; gas diffusion layer; trapezoidal flow channels; methanol concentration
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Funding
- Indian Nanoelectronics Users Program (INUP) of IIT Bombay
- Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai
- MEMS Lab of Alva's Institute of Engineering and Technology, Moodbidri
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This work presents design, fabrication and optimization of methanol concentration and flow channel cross-sectional geometry for enhanced power output in passive micro-direct methanol fuel cells. Passive micro-direct methanol fuel cells are fabricated with flow channels in silicon having both rectangular and trapezoidal cross-sectional geometry for flow of methanol at anode and air at cathode using micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) fabrication technique. The experiments are conducted at 25 degrees C by feeding methanol with a flow rate of 25 mu l min(-1) and supply of air at cathode by air-breathing method. Results show a peak in open circuit voltage and power density at 7 M methanol concentration for passive micro-direct methanol fuel cells having both rectangular and trapezoidal cross-sectional geometry. A study of influence of silicon flow channel cross-sectional geometry on passive micro-direct methanol fuel cell performance shows for the first time that the flow channels with trapezoidal cross-section enhance the power density (6.64 mW cm(-2)) nearly by a factor of two compared to that of flow channels with rectangular cross-section (3.9 mW cm(-2)) at 7 M methanol concentration.We believe that, though our results of significant enhancement of power density with trapezoidal fuel flow channels are obtained with micro-direct methanol fuel cells as a platform, they should also be applicable to other proton exchange membrane fuel cells with ethanol or humidified hydrogen as fuel.
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