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A glue method for fabricating membrane electrode assemblies for direct methanol fuel cells
Authors:Z.X. Liang   T.S. Zhao  J. Prabhuram
Affiliation:

aDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China

Abstract:We present a simple glue method for fabricating membrane electrode assemblies (MEA) for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). Rather than the conventional “dry” hot-pressing method that relies solely on hot-pressing at a high pressure and temperature to form a MEA, the “wet” method developed in this work introduces a binding agent, consisting of Nafion® solution, between a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) and an anode/cathode. The introduced binding agent can provide a better adhesion and stronger binding force between a membrane and an electrode, thereby facilitating a better interfacial contact between the electrode and the Nafion® membrane, which has been proved by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses to the cross-sectional morphology of the MEA after long-term operation. The cell performance characterization showed the MEA fabricated by the glue method was more stable in cell performance than that fabricated by the conventional hot-pressing method. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) results also demonstrated the MEA fabricated by the glue method exhibited a higher electrochemical surface area (ESA) as a result of the improved interfacial contact between the Nafion® membrane and the electrodes. Finally, the DMFC with the MEA fabricated by the glue method was characterized by the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS).
Keywords:Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC)   Membrane electrode assembly (MEA)   Glue method   Interfacial contact
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