Engineering Commons^™

Quantifying Individual Losses In A Direct Methanol Fuel Cell, Jennifer Rae Ruffing

Theses and Dissertations

The performance of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is complicated due to the complex interactions of kinetic and transport processes. As a result, changes in one aspect of the cell have consequences in other aspects, which are difficult to elucidate from the full-cell polarization (i.e. voltage vs. current) behavior that fuel cell researchers often use to characterize the performance of their systems. The objective of this work was to develop a strategy to use current and voltage relationships from anode half cells, cathode half-cells, and a hydrogen pump, coupled with methanol crossover data and a mathematical model, to quantify …