Design and Simulation of Air-Breathing Micro Direct Methanol Fuel Cells with Different Anode Flow Fields

Deng, Huichao; Zhou, Jiaxu; Zhang, Yufeng

doi:10.3390/mi12030253

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Owing to the outstanding advantages of compact volume, high energy efficiency, and high energy density, etc., [ 44–46 ] air‐breathing DMFCs are regarded as highly promising power sources for portable and wearable applications. [ 46–50 ] However, liquid fuel methanol in air‐breathing DMFCs can easily leak from the fuel container (Scheme 1). The leakage of methanol can easily cause serious safety problems, such as asphyxia, toxicity, fire, or even explosions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[ 22,25 ] For fuel cells, the catastrophic effect could be caused by fuel leakage, which is induced by mechanical abusive loading. [ 41,42 ] Because current fuel cells usually use high energy density fuels, such as hydrogen, [ 43 ] methanol, [ 44–53 ] ethanol, [ 54–58 ] etc., the leakage of these fuels can easily cause serious safety problems, such as asphyxia, toxicity, fire, or even explosions (Scheme 1). Currently, most of the attention is focused on the early warning of fuel leakage, [ 41,42 ] but more attention should be paid to problem‐solving.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Highly Safe, Durable, Adaptable, and Flexible Fuel Cell Using Gel/Sponge Composite Material

Zou

Jin

et al. 2021

Advanced Energy Materials

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With the rapid development of portable and wearable electronics, safety concerns over flexible energy devices are inevitable. Therefore, it is important to develop energy supplies that are safe for use. In this work, a highly safe, durable, adaptable, and flexible air‐breathing direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is successfully prepared by synthesizing and applying a new composite material with agar gel and wood sponge, that is, a gel/sponge composite. The gel/sponge composite has a high absorption rate, high cyclic performance, high methanol absorption capacity, high energy content, and high flexibility. Moreover, the gel/sponge composite with 1.5% agar gel retains approximately 90% of the methanol solution at a pressure of 29.4 kPa, and the areal energy density of the proposed DMFC approaches 13.7 mWh cm−2. Both the single‐cell and stack of DMFC with the new composite material successfully survive a series of destructive tests, including needle penetration, cutting, and compression. Therefore, it is successfully demonstrated that absorbent materials can greatly boost the safety, adaptability, flexibility, and energy density of air‐breathing DMFCs. Furthermore, this concept shows promise in improving the safety of other fuel cells by using absorbent materials to solidify their gaseous or liquid fuels.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly Safe, Durable, Adaptable, and Flexible Fuel Cell Using Gel/Sponge Composite Material

Zou

Jin

et al. 2021

Advanced Energy Materials

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Flow field plate of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells: A review

Yan

Zhang²,

Qu³

2023

Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy

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Recently, pursuing strategic alternative to traditional fossil fuels becomes an importance method to meet the increasing energy demands and environmental improvement needs. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) can directly convert the chemical energy of fuels into electricity without contamination and the restriction of the Carnot cycle effect. Flow field plate (FFP) as a critical part of PEMFC is to provide the mechanical support, conductive medium, the channel of reaction gases, and water and thermal management. However, the complicated mechanisms of FFP are not very clearly understood since the materials and structures are associated closely with cost, performance and lifetime. In this paper, different materials and structures are analyzed and their characteristics are summarized. Meanwhile, an opinion was proposed that porous metal foam flow field will be the most promising development direction in the future, mainly focusing on surface treatment, pattern and manifold design.

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Alkaline Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell: Effect of the Anode Flow Field Design and the Setup Parameters on Performance

et al. 2022

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Alkaline direct ethanol fuel cells (DEFCs) represent an efficient energy conversion device for sustainable ethanol fuel. In this study, a design with new structural parameters for the anodic flow field of the alkaline DEFC was modeled with the aid of computational fluid dynamics and was then actually constructed. Single-cell tests were performed to evaluate the impact of the developed design on fuel cell performance. The results show that fuel cell performance significantly increased when using the improved design in the low-temperature range. The higher the temperature in the cell, the lower the influence of the flow field structure on performance. In addition, the influence of external factors, such as the orientation of the cell, the preheating of the fuel, and the direction of the two fuel flows relative to each other (co-current and counter-current), are shown.

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Design and Simulation of Air-Breathing Micro Direct Methanol Fuel Cells with Different Anode Flow Fields

Cited by 3 publications

References 19 publications

Highly Safe, Durable, Adaptable, and Flexible Fuel Cell Using Gel/Sponge Composite Material

Highly Safe, Durable, Adaptable, and Flexible Fuel Cell Using Gel/Sponge Composite Material

Flow field plate of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells: A review

Alkaline Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell: Effect of the Anode Flow Field Design and the Setup Parameters on Performance

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