A new cathode structure for air-breathing DMFCs operated with pure methanol

•We proposed a new cathode structure for DMFC with pure methanol as fuel.•PTFE layer was prepared between cathode catalyst layer and diffusion layer.•More water is pushed to anode from cathode than traditional structure.•Open circuit voltage of MEA with the new structure stabilizes faster and higher.•Performance of MEA with the new structure doubles over the traditional MEA.

In this paper, a new cathode structure for air-breathing DMFCs operated with pure methanol was proposed to push the water produced at the cathode to the anode through the membrane. The open-circuit voltage (OCV) measurement showed that the single cell with this new structure attained its stable value within less time and reached a higher OCV than that of traditional cathode structure. The measurement of the amount of water collected in the cathode showed that the new cathode structure could push more water to the anode. The I–V performance test proved that MEA with new cathode structure had better performance than that of the traditional one, and reached a peak power density of 29.4 mW/cm2, 100% higher than that of the traditional one.