Open Access

ARTICLE

The Effects of the Geometry of a Current Collector with an Equal Open Ratio on Output Power of a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell

by Yingli Zhu^1,*, Jiachi Xie¹, Mingwei Zhu¹, Jun Zhang², Miaomiao Li³

1 Tianjin Key Laboratory of Integrated Design and On-line Monitoring for Light Industry & Food Machinery and Equipment, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin, 300222, China
2 Tianjin College, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Tianjin, 301830, China
3 Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Precision and Micro-Manufacturing Technology, College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

* Corresponding Author: Yingli Zhu. Email:

Energy Engineering 2024, 121(5), 1161-1172. https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2024.041205

Received 14 April 2023; Accepted 08 October 2023; Issue published 30 April 2024

Abstract

The open ratio of a current collector has a great impact on direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) performance. Although a number of studies have investigated the influence of the open ratio of DMFC current collectors, far too little attention has been given to how geometry (including the shape and feature size of the flow field) affects a current collector with an equal open ratio. In this paper, perforated and parallel current collectors with an equal open ratio of 50% and different feature sizes are designed, and the corresponding experimental results are shown to explain the geometry effects on the output power of the DMFC. The results indicate that the optimal feature sizes are between 2 and 2.5 mm for both perforated and parallel flow field in the current collectors with an equal open ratio of 50%. This means that for passive methanol fuel cells, to achieve the highest output power, the optimal feature size of the flow field in both anode and cathode current collectors is between 2 and 2.5 mm under the operating mode of this experiment. The effects of rib and channel position are also investigated, and the results indicate that the optimum pattern depends on the feature sizes of the flow field.

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Keywords

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