A fully capillary-driven μDMFC twin-stack operating in all orientations

A novel concept of fully automatic fuel supply for passive micro direct methanol fuel cells (μDMFCs) twin-stack is presented. A special capillary pump featured by symmetric channel array is designed to transport methanol fuel spontaneously by capillary force and allows the stack operating in all spa...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in2015 Transducers - 2015 18th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (TRANSDUCERS) pp. 934 - 937
Main Authors Zonglin Wu, Xiaohong Wang, Manqi Xu, Litian Liu
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.06.2015
Subjects
all spatial orientations
Anodes
Arrays
automatic fuel supply
capillary pump
Cathodes
Force
Fuels
Methanol
Passive μDMFCs
Prototypes
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:A novel concept of fully automatic fuel supply for passive micro direct methanol fuel cells (μDMFCs) twin-stack is presented. A special capillary pump featured by symmetric channel array is designed to transport methanol fuel spontaneously by capillary force and allows the stack operating in all spatial orientations. The prototype was demonstrated to exhibit a power density of 22.5 mWcm -2 in the preferred vertical orientation and of 17.1 mWcm -2 in the least favorable inverted orientation with fuel tank facing downwards. Furthermore, the stack achieved continuous operation in different orientations more than 300 minutes without significant performance degradation. As such, it is more applicable for portable devices.
ISSN:2159-547X
DOI:10.1109/TRANSDUCERS.2015.7181077