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Direct Methanol Fuel Cell -Investigation of MEA Fabrication Processes and Its Performance Analysis

In this research the effects of the fabrication processes of MEA on the output power of a DMFC stack are studied by changing hot-pressing conditions including pressure, temperature and time. Additionally, the effects of the various treatments of the MEAs on the output voltage and power are also studied after the hot-pressing process of MEA is finished.
In the first experimental study the catalyst of cathode is 4.0mg/cm unsupported HP Pt black, Anode is 4.0mg/cm 80% HP Pt-Ru Alloy (1: 1), membrane is Nafion 117, and bipolar plates is heterogeneous carbon fiber bipolar plate developed by our fuel cell laboratory. The MEA for single cell includes the area of membrane 3*3 cm2 the active area of electrode 1.5*1.5 cm2. Under the hot-pressing conditions 120 oC, 100 bar and 90s, the maximum power density can reach a value of 18 mW/cm2 at the conditions of methanol concentration 3 M, air-breathing, and room temperature
After several experiments, we observed that performances of MEAs decayed with time. So we designed a series of experiments to inspect the various possible reasons and try to solve this problem.
The cylindrical DMFC is one of the most important developments in our lab. However, the MEAs made for plate-type DMFC do not fit the cylindrical DMFC stack properly. The electrodes easily pealed off from the membrane and the contact resistance increases after certain periods. So the hot-pressing device had been redesigned to fit the cylindrical DMFC stack. After that the total power of the 6-cell stack with total active area 15 cm2 can reach a value 135 mW. If the performance of each cell of the 6-cell stack is uniform, we expect that the total power of this stack can reach a higher value 195 mW, which can be applied to some portable electronic products.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0824106-134730
Date24 August 2006
CreatorsLo, Chin-hung
Contributorsnone, none, none
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0824106-134730
Rightsnot_available, Copyright information available at source archive

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