Polymer electrolyte membranes for the direct methanol fuel cell: A review Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) has the potential to replace lithium-ion rechargeable batteries in portable electronic devices, but currently experiences significant power density and efficiency losses due to high methanol crossover through polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs). Numerous publications document the synthesis and characterization of new PEMs for the DMFC. This article reviews this research, transport phenomena in PEMs, and experimental techniques used to evaluate new PEMs for the DMFC. Although many PEMs do not show significant improvements over Nafion, the benchmark PEM in DMFCs, experimental results show that several new PEMs exhibit lower methanol crossover at similar proton conductivities and/or higher DMFC power densities. These results and recommendations for future research are discussed. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE PART B-POLYMER PHYSICS

altmetric score

  • 3

author list (cited authors)

  • Deluca, N. W., & Elabd, Y. A.

citation count

  • 393

complete list of authors

  • Deluca, Nicholas W||Elabd, Yossef A

publication date

  • January 2006

publisher