Design Criteria of a DMFC Stack with Low Scaling Effects

Abstract

In this paper, recent advances in design and fabrication of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) stack are presented. DMFC fuel cells are viewed as one of the most environmentally friendly energy conversion system due to high theoretical electrical efficiency for portable application. These advantages are mainly depends on overall system design and especially on stack operating performance. In order to increase the performance of the overall system, design criteria of a DMFC stack has been considered. A DMFC stack with optimum flow field, flow direction, uniform pressure drop and flow distribution has been constructed. Scale effects respect to the number of cells are tested on single cell, short stack and stack by a homemade test bench. The results are shown the scale effect respect to the number of cells is ignorable.