Electrochemical energy conversion: methanol fuel cell as example

Fuel cells for electrochemical energy conversion

A fuel cell is essentially a compact electrochemical “factory” that takes fuel as input and produces electricity as output (see fig. 1). Like a factory, a fuel cell will continue to churn out product (electricity) as long as raw material (fuel) is supplied. This is the key difference between a fuel cell and a battery. While both rely on electrochemistry to work their magic, a fuel cell is not c...

Alkaline Methanol Fuel Cell Electrocatalysis Using a Pressurized Electrochemical Cell

Electrochemical and flow characterization of a direct methanol fuel cell

Two-phase phenomena, i.e. bubble flow in the anode and water flooding in the cathode, are critical to design of high-performance direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). A 5 cm2 transparent DMFC has been developed to visualize these phenomena in situ. Two types of membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) based on Nafion® 112 were used to investigate effects of backing pore structure and wettability on cell ...

Assessment of Electrochemical Methods for Methanol Crossover Measurement through PEM of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell

It is important to have accurate, reliable, and convenient techniques for determining the methanol crossover rate through the polymer electrolyte membranes of fuel cells. In this work, various electrochemical techniques, namely; cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry and potentiometry, have been used to measure the methanol crossover rates using Nafion 117 membrane. The purpose of using differen...

Functionalized and Electrospun Polymeric Materials as High-Performance Membranes for Direct Methanol Fuel Cell: A Review

Proton exchange membranes (PEM) for a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) have main drawbacks which are methanol permeability, reduced proton conductivity and the cost of the membrane. This paper reviews different polymeric materials such as fluorinated, non-fluorinated, acid-base complex, and composite membranes for DMFC. Currently, nonfluorinated membranes gain a lot of atte...