Hybrid fuel cell for mobile devices : an integrated approach

As mobile devices advance to 3G and beyond, there will be a pressing need for increased power to drive these devices, which the current batteries cannot provide. The direct methanol fuel cell has been identified as a promising candidate to provide power to future mobile devices. However, commercialization of mobile devices containing fuel cells has been difficult due to several factors, including inefficiencies in the fuel cell, its large size, and difficulties of integration into the device. An Axiomatic approach was used to identify the key problems that prevent commercialization, along with identifying possible solutions for these problems. These possible solutions were investigated for use in developing a fuel cell for mobile devices of high performance, small size, and integrated hybrid circuitry. To construct a high performance fuel cell, several experiments varying the methanol flow rate, oxygen and methanol concentration, and cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL) were performed on two standard membrane electrode assemblies (MEA). In addition, an MEA was modified using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to test its effect on decreasing methanol crossover for improved fuel cell performance.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Sohn, Munhee, 1981-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jung-Hong Chun.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/35641

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35641