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SUMMARYThe effect of anode current collector on the performance of passive direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) was investigated in this paper. The results revealed that the anode of passive DMFC with perforated current collector was poor at removing the produced CO 2 bubbles that blocked the access of fuel to the active sites and thus degraded the cell performance. Moreover, the performances of the passive DMFCs with different parallel current collectors and different methanol concentrations at different temperatures were also tested and compared. The results indicated that the anode parallel current collector with a larger open ratio exhibited the best performance at higher temperatures and lower methanol solution concentrations due to enhanced mass transfer of methanol from the methanol solution reservoir to the gas diffusion layer. However, the passive DMFC with a smaller open ratio of the parallel current collector exhibited the best performance at lower temperatures and higher methanol solution concentrations due to the lower methanol crossover rate.

SUMMARYA novel cathode configuration that promotes the mass transports through the cathode of air-breathing direct methanol fuel cell is reported in this paper. This cathode, free of the support by conventional wet-proof carbon fiber backing, adopts a gold-plated Ni mesh as the air passages and the current collector. The cathode microporous layer , which plays the role of air diffusion and water management, is applied on the catalyst-coated membrane through the decal method. The mesh is combined with the MPL by hot-pressing procedure to form the cathode diffusion medium. The remarkable improvement of two-phase diffusions at cathode results in an increment in maximum power density of the single cell from 11.0 to 15.5 mW cm À2 at 293 K.

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