Durability and efficiency tests for direct methanol fuel cell's long-term performance assessment

Pulin Yeh, Chu Hsiang Chang, Naichien Shih and Naichia Yeh

Energy, 2016, vol. 107, issue C, 716-724

Abstract: This research assessed the long-term performance of direct methanol fuel cells. The experiment was performed at room temperature using 0.51 mol/L ∼0.651 mol/L methanol with a fuel consumption rate of 0.8 ± 0.1 cc/Wh at stack temperature of 60 °C–70 °C. DuPont Nafion115 proton exchange membrane was used as the base material of MEA (membrane electrode assembly), which is then examined via a series of processes that include IV curve test, humidity cycle test, load cycle test, and hydrogen penetration test. The study employs membrane modification and cell structure adjustment approaches to reduce the methanol crossover in the cathode and identify the cell performance effect of the carbon paper gas diffusion layer. The test results indicated an efficiency of 25% can be achieved with a three-piece MEA assembly. According to the durability test, the stack power-generation efficiency has maintained at 15%–25% level. With such efficiency, the stack voltage output has been able to stay above 7.8-V for over 5000 h. This result is in line with industry standard.

Keywords: Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC); Gas diffusion layer (GDL); Methanol crossover; Membrane electrode assembly (MEA); Micro-porous layer (MPL); Proton exchange membrane (PEM) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544216305047
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:107:y:2016:i:c:p:716-724

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2016.04.091

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().