Experimental Test and Performance Optimization of Single Cell in Direct Methanol Fuel Cell

With new composite membrane materials of Na2Ti3O7/Nafion for proton exchange membrane,Membrane Electrode Assembly(MEA)was prepared using hot-pressing method,and had been tested in single direct methanol fuel cell.Operation parameters of cell temperature,cathode humidifying temperature,methanol concentration,methanol flow rate and air flow rate have been employed to study on the effect of direct methanol fuel cells polarization curve.Experimental results show that the effect of cell temperature on the cell performance is obvious,so increase cell temperature is helpful to get better cell performance.Effect of methanol concentrations on cell performance is also obvious.The lower methanol concentration is favorable to improve cell properties.The effect of methanol flow rate and air flow rate to the cell performance is lesser.Effect of cathode humidification temperature on cell performance almost has no effect.Through the analysis and optimization,the better operation conditions of direct methanol fuel cells is in cell temperature of 80 ℃,and the low concentration of methanol when the cell works in low current density,or high concentrations of methanol when the cell works in high current density.