Practical Prototypes of DMFC and Their Features

In parallel with the large amount of work done to study the mechanism and operating features of methanol fuel cells with proton-conducting membranes, operating models of such fuel cells started to appear in the mid-1990s, first as laboratory-type small single-element fuel cells, then. Anally, in the form of multicell stacks of relatively large power. 

In the Los Alamos National Laboratory test, fuel cells were studied at temperature above 1(X) C with air and pure oxygen. A fuel cell with a Nation 112 membranes at a temperature of 130 C, and pure oxygen, at a pressure of 5 bar, and at a voltage of 0.5 V, attained a current density of 670 mA/cm, which corresponds to a power density of 400 mW/cm. With the same fuel cell at a temperature of 110°C, using air at a pressure of 3 bar, a maximum power density of 250 mW/cm was achieved. 

At the University of Hong Kong, China, a direct methanol fuel cell with passive supply of the methanol solution was built. The solution was supplied to the fuel cell by natural convection from a vessel, situated above the fuel cell. Carbon dioxide evolved 

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