Effects of operating parameters on performance of a single direct methanol fuel cell

Abstract

In this study the effect of various operating conditions on 10 cm × 10 cm active area of in-house fabricated direct methanol fuel cell was investigated experimentally. The effect of the cell temperature, methanol concentration, and oxygen flow rate on cell performance was studied. The study reveals that current density is not monotonous function of temperature, but has an optimum operating condition for each cell voltage. The experiments also indicate that the cell performance increases with an increased of oxygen flow rate up to a certain value and then further increase has no significant effect. Further more, for methanol concentration greater than 1.5 M, a reduction of cell voltage was indicated which is due to an increase of methanol cross over.