TY - JOUR
AU - Chu, Deryn
AB - The bi-cell, or pseudo-bipolar electrode, configuration provides a compact cell design that is well suited for small and portable fuel cell systems. This format places two membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) within a unit. The MEAs’ anodes are mirrored around a common fuel reservoir, or channel, with the anode of the first MEA electrically connected to the cathode of the second. A hybrid bi-cell format using a first acidic proton exchange membrane (PEM) based MEA and a second alkaline anion exchange membrane (AEM) based MEA is put forth. In this scenario, the respective anodes balance faradaic water requirements. A computational approach is used to explore transport in passive direct methanol bi-cell units, which are fueled from a fixed internal reservoir. The merit of the hybrid bi-cell approach is examined by comparing to a passive standard bi-cell unit configuration using two PEM based MEAs. Relative to the standard bi-cell, our model shows that the balanced water stoichiometry of the acidic and alkaline methanol oxidations reactions in the hybrid bi-cell reduces the overall rate/volume of water loss from the fuel reservoir during discharge. This benefit is exploited in our complementary manuscript [K. N. Grew and D. Chu, J. Electrochem. Soc., Accepted for publication].
TI - Hybrid Bi-Cell for Water Independent Direct Methanol Fuel Cells: I. The Passive Fuel Cell
JF - Journal of the Electrochemical Society
DO - 10.1149/2.0671410jes
DA - 2014-07-23
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/iop-publishing/hybrid-bi-cell-for-water-independent-direct-methanol-fuel-cells-i-the-08pZTNAblF
SP - F1021
EP - F1036
VL - 161
IS - 10
DP - DeepDyve
ER -