The Simple Fabrication and Packaging of Micro DMFC by MEMS Technology

This paper reports a simple and cheap fabrication for a micro direct methanol fuel cell, featured by MEMS technology. KOH solution was used to fabricate the microchannel. Then laser technology was used to drill fuel feeding hole and connections between formed microchannels. Finally, Ti/Cu/Pt layers of 100Å/3000Å/800Å in thickness were coated onto the surface of etched microchannel by e-gun evaporator as the catalyst layer to increase the area of electrode. Two different widths of microchannels, which are 200μm and 400μm, were fabricated. The advantage of the designed package was self-aligned with the chips by using glass chips. The aligned holes on both fabricated chip and glass chip were drilled by laser, which could be self-aligned and locked by screw. Therefore it’s easy to assemble the chip, MEA, and glass chip by this simple package way. The designed package could be used to prevent the fuel leakage and chip damage problems under operation. The performance of this μDMFC was measured up to 40mW/cm² at 60°C with 2M methanol solution.