Development of a conceptual design model of a direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC)

Small fuel cells appear to be appealing solutions to the problem of providing portable energy sources. One promising system is the Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell (DEFC) stacks, which are modular and simple to construct and have certain attributes, such as being a compact and lightweight cell, that make it favorable for portable applications. Nevertheless, there are still many challenges for DEFC commercialization, such as water transport management, EtOH crossover and the sluggish Ethanol Oxidation Reaction (EOR) kinetics on the anode. The phenomena involved with DEFCs are complicated and include transport processes, thermochemical reactions and fluid mechanics that are hard to quantify experimentally. On the other hand, mathematical modeling is a powerful and economical tool that enables us to better understand the physical phenomena that occur during operation. In this study, a conceptual design was developed to obtain a power performance curve. The voltage and current characteristics with the proposed MEA geometry will be used as starting point for more detailed modeling and simulation studies that aim to provide a basic understanding of the internal process of the DEFC. This study is to be used as initial estimations for engineers to design and optimize the DEFC for use in portable applications.