Prediction of methanol and water fluxes through a direct methanol fuel cell polymer electrolyte membrane

A theoretical model of the membrane electrode assembly of liquid feed direct methanol fuel cell with consideration of water and methanol crossover

“…The enhancement is a direct consequence of the water flow-induced convective mass transfer on methanol, as described in Eqs. (17) and (21). Fig.…”

“…Cathode feed: air, membrane Nafion 117, cathode gas diffuser contact angle: 120 • , P A = P C = 1 atm, T = 353 K. the second term on the right hand side of Eq. (21). Although the diffusive mass transfer decreases steadily with I cell , there could be a situation where the enhanced methanol convection by water flow surpasses the decline of diffusion so that an overall increase of I leak occurs.…”

“…Kulikovsky [8,9] considered the effect of channel flow on the cathode mixed potential, and found that a narrow zone of local current bridge which short-circuits the cell at a small current load. The inclusion of water transport phenomenon, in addition to the methanol crossover, was developed only recently [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. It is noted that most water transport included models are based on the computational fluid dynamics except a few analytical works in Refs.…”

“…It is noted that most water transport included models are based on the computational fluid dynamics except a few analytical works in Refs. [21,22]. Sandhu et al [21] algebraically formulated the methanol and water crossover equations but only limited to the membrane region without consideration of the respective anode and cathode electrochemical reactions.…”

Macroscopic Modeling of Polymer-Electrolyte Membranes

“…Since the membranes are basically identical, the same can be said of the membrane models [121,174,[235][236][237][238][239][240][241][242][243]. A benefit of DMFCs is that liquid water exists on both sides of the membrane (in most cases at high enough current densities), and thus it remains liquidequilibrated throughout.…”