Performance of miniaturized direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) devices using micropump for fuel delivery |
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| Affiliation: | 2. Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume, Japan;3. Cardiovascular Research Institute, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume, Japan;1. School of Electronics and Information, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, PR China;2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-05 Aza-Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8579, Japan;3. Department of Chemistry, Henan Chemical Technician College, Kaifeng 475004, PR China;4. Department of Electronic Engineering, Tohoku University, 6-6-05 Aza-Aoba, Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8579, Japan;1. College of Information Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China;2. MEMS Center, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China;1. Quantitative Biology Center (QBiC), RIKEN, 1-3 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan;2. Department of Robotics and Mechatronics, Tokyo Denki University, 5 Senju-asahi-cho, Adachi-ku, Tokyo 120-8551, Japan;1. Politecnico di Torino, Department of Applied Science and Technology, Corso Duca Degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy;2. Università Della Calabria, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Technologies, Via P. Bucci Cubo 14/D, 87036 Rende CS, Italy |
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| Abstract: | A fuel cell is a device that can convert chemical energy into electricity directly. Among various types of fuel cells, both polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) can work at low temperature (<80 °C). Therefore, they can be used to supply power for commercial portable electronics such as laptop computers, digital cameras, PDAs and cell phones. The focus of this paper is to investigate the performance of a miniaturized DMFC device using a micropump to deliver fuel. The core of this micropump is a piezoelectric ring-type bending actuator and the associated nozzle/diffuser for directing fuel flow. Based on the experimental measurements, it is found that the performance of the fuel cell can be significantly improved if enough fuel flow is induced by the micropump at anode. Three factors may contribute to the performance enhancement including replenishment of methanol, decrease of diffusion resistance and removal of carbon dioxide. In comparison with conventional mini pumps, the size of the piezoelectric micropump is much smaller and the energy consumption is much lower. Thus, it is very viable and effective to use a piezoelectric valveless micropump for fuel delivery in miniaturized DMFC power systems. |
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