Ultrasonic radiation to enable improvement of direct methanol fuel cell

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• 作者：Chaoqun Wu^a ; ^b ; ^{chaoqunwu@whut.edu.cn" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Jiang Wu^a ; ^{five.j@163.com" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Hao Luo^a ; ^{luoh430@163.com" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Sanwu Wang^a ; ^{Wangsw@whut.edu.cn" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Tao Chen^a ; ^{chent29@whut.edu.cn" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author}
• 关键词：Direct methanol fuel cell ; Ultrasonic radiation ; Catalyst poisoning ; Cell performance ; Acoustic power ; Ultrasonic frequency
• 刊名：Ultrasonics Sonochemistry
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：March 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：29
• 期：Complete
• 页码：363-370
• 全文大小：2329 K

文摘

To improve DMFC (direct methanol fuel cell) performance, a new method using ultrasonic radiation is proposed and a novel DMFC structure is designed and fabricated in the present paper. Three ultrasonic transducers (piezoelectric transducer, PZT) are integrated in the flow field plate to form the ultrasonic field in the liquid fuel. Ultrasonic frequency, acoustic power, and methanol concentration have been considered as variables in the experiments. With the help of ultrasonic radiation, the maximum output power and limiting current of cell can be independently increased by 30.73% and 40.54%, respectively. The best performance of DMFC is obtained at the condition of ultrasonic radiation (30 kHz and 4 W) fed with 2 M methanol solution, because both its limiting current and output power reach their maximum value simultaneously (222 mA and 33.6 mW, respectively) under this condition. These results conclude that ultrasonic can be an alternative choice for improving the cell performance, and can facilitate a guideline for the optimization of DMFC.