A novel anode for preventing liquid sealing effect in DMFC

Carbon dioxide removal from the catalyst sites is critical to ensure high power output operation of direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). In this work, a novel anode which contains water-proof oil, dimethyl silicon oil (DMS) was prepared for preventing liquid sealing effect (LSE) to CO₂. The novel electrode displays outstanding preventing LSE capability than a conventional PtRu/C electrode. The success of the novel anode in preventing LSE is due to DMS, in which the solubility and diffusion coefficient of CO₂ are much higher than that in methanol–water solution, supplying an unoccupied channel for CO₂ transportation.