Abstract (EN):
Passive direct methanol fuel cells (pDMFCs) appear as a promising alternative for power portable electronic devices, since they use a liquid fuel, which is easy to handle, storage and distribute and have a quick refuelling, high efficiency and low environmental impacts. However, some issues need to be solved before the introduction of this technology in the market, such as methanol and water crossover through the membrane, low lifetime and high costs. In this way, the present work studies the effect of reducing the catalyst loadings, on both anode and cathode sides, on the performance of a mini passive DMFC towards a reduction of these systems costs. Moreover, the different phenomena that affect the cell performance were identified based on the polarization measurements and quantified using the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique. The main goal of this study was to reduce the costs of these systems without a significant lost on their performance and analyse in detail the different losses that negatively affect the cells under the light of the EIS technique. Therefore, it was proposed an innovative equivalent electric circuit (EEC) that reproduces with accuracy the system under study. © 2022 Proceedings of WHEC 2022 - 23rd World Hydrogen Energy Conference: Bridging Continents by H2. All rights reserved.
Idioma:
Inglês
Tipo (Avaliação Docente):
Científica