Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Efficiency

1 2008 11 18 a m.

Direct methanol fuel cell efficiency.

Direct methanol fuel cell research at los alamos has focused on developing materials and optimizing performance of direct methan ol fuel cells for portable power devices e g commercial electronics battery replacement for the military and transportation e g on board auxiliary power un its. Whilst the thermodynamic theoretical energy conversion efficiency of a dmfc is 97. The currently achievable energy conversion efficiency for operational cells attains 30 40. It has some commercial advantages such low price compact construction quick refueling.

Methanol fuel cells how cost efficient are they. Direct methanol fuel cells dmfc have been widely researched for applications in portable electronics due to their use of liquid fuel for easy storage and transportation compared to gaseous hydrogen. Their main advantage is the ease of transport of methanol an energy dense yet reasonably stable liquid at all environmental conditions. A schematic representation of a direct methanol fuel cell dmfc which is a type of pem fuel cell is shown in figure 1.

Glaskowsky runs the numbers on a new fuel cell power supply from idatech. The direct methanol fuel cell dmfc was developed to tackle the fuel storage problem of hydrogen and to eliminate the need of a reformer to convert methanol to hydrogen. The direct methanol fuel cell dmfc represent an interesting solution to produce electricity. There is intensive research on promising approaches to inc.

But real world figures may be only achieved in some years since the development of direct methanol and ethanol fuel cells is lagging behind hydrogen powered fuel. Direct methanol fuel cell. Theoretically the efficiency of an ethanol fuel cell should be 96 percent but in practice at the highest power density it is only 30 percent due to a variety of reasons. Due to its unique advantages such as a higher energy density facile liquid fuel storage capability and simpler system structure the direct methanol fuel cell has been identified as one of the most promising power sources for the portable and clean mobile applications in the near future.

Direct methanol fuel cells or dmfcs are a subcategory of proton exchange fuel cells in which methanol is used as the fuel. However dmfc s performance is strongly affected by methanol crossover that significantly degrades the energy efficiency at low output power and is characterized by an increasing efficiency at increasing output power.