Direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC) systems are comparatively simple, sometimes just requiring a cartridge and stack with appropriate control devices. The key challenge in these is the accurate determination of flow rates mixture methanol water, fundamental understanding can be gained by computational fluid dynamics. In this work, three-dimensional, steady-state, two-phase, multi-component non-iso...

The development of a durable and methanol tolerant electrocatalyst with a high oxygen reduction reaction activity is highly important for the cathode side of direct methanol fuel cells. Here, we describe a simple and novel methodology to fabricate a practically applicable electrocatalyst with a high methanol tolerance based on poly[2,2'-(2,6-pyridine)-5,5'-bibenzimidazole]-wrapped multi-walled ...

Dimethyl ether (DME) has been considered as a promising alternative fuel for direct-feed fuel cells but lack of an efficient DME oxidation electrocatalyst has remained the challenge for the commercialization of the direct DME fuel cell. The commonly studied binary PtRu catalyst shows much lower activity in DME than methanol oxidation. In this work, guided by density functional theory (DFT) calc...

Carbon capsules with hollow core and mesoporous shell (HCMS) structures were used as a support material for Pt(50)-Ru(50) catalyst, and the catalytic performance of the HCMS supported catalyst in the direct methanol fuel cell was described; the HCMS carbon supported catalysts exhibited much higher specific activity for methanol oxidation than the commonly used E-TEK catalyst by about 80%, provi...

In this study, TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) were synthesized via a hydrothermal method using highly concentrated NaOH solutions varying from 6 to 12 M at 180 °C for 48 h. The effects of the NaOH concentration and the TNT crystal structure on the performance for methanol oxidation were investigated to determine the best catalyst support for Pt-based catalysts. The results showed that TNTs produced with...

It is important to have accurate, reliable, and convenient techniques for determining the methanol crossover rate through the polymer electrolyte membranes of fuel cells. In this work, various electrochemical techniques, namely; cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry and potentiometry, have been used to measure the methanol crossover rates using Nafion 117 membrane. The purpose of using differen...