Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Efficiency

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 cell efficiency.

Their main advantage is the ease of transport of methanol an energy dense yet reasonably stable liquid at all environmental conditions. 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. A direct methanol fuel cell dmfc is an electrochemical energy conversion device that converts the chemical energy of liquid methanol into electrical energy directly.

Methanol fuel cells how cost efficient are they. So there is much room. A schematic representation of a direct methanol fuel cell dmfc which is a type of pem fuel cell is shown in figure 1. The currently achievable energy conversion efficiency for operational cells attains 30 40.

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. Glaskowsky runs the numbers on a new fuel cell power supply from idatech. 1 2008 11 18 a m. 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.

Bio ethanol based fuel cells may improve the well to wheel balance of this biofuel because of the increased conversion rate of the fuel cell compared to the internal combustion engine. 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. 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. It has some commercial advantages such low price compact construction quick refueling.

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. The direct methanol fuel cell dmfc represent an interesting solution to produce electricity.