Design and Fabrication for Coplanar Type of Micro-DMFC

This research is to fabricate μ-DMFC (micro direct methanol fuel cell) by using MEMS technology. A novel concept of design, compared with the traditional type of DMFC, has been designed and fabricated, which anode and cathode are made in the same plane so called coplanar type of DMFC. In this coplanar type of DMFC, we can also integrate the current collectors and catalyst layer on the flow channels. In order to improve the performance of entire system, we also integrate the fuel preheat device on the chip, so heater was put on the flow channels. By the heating effect, we apply voltage on both sides to increase operation temperature. The experiment results show that when we apply 41 volts on the pads, system average temperature will reach 70°C. Then the fuel (2M CH₃OH / 2.5M H₂SO₄ / H₂O) was fed into anode, and (O₂-sat. / 2.5M H₂SO₄ / H₂O) was fed into cathode, operating under 70°C. The maximum power was reached around 0.956mW/cm² at 4.978 mA/cm².