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Portable Power Generation Table 1. A comparison of the performance of our device operated on H2 at RT to
B. Gurau1, L. Zhu2, H.S. Kim1, R.D. Morgan1, V. Vilasur those reported previously. We only included references where hydrogen was the
fuel and the peak power was more than 10 mW/cm2
Swaminathan2 Open Cell Design Peak Power
M.A. Shannon2, R.I. Masel1 Cell Area Density
1
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Voltage mm 2
(mW/cm2)
2 (V)
Mechanical Science & Engineering
600S. Mathews Ave Silicon wafers 195 with pure
Yu et al. [2] 0.95 500 bolted to O2 flowing on
University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801 USA conventional MEA cathode
Silicon wafers 70 with
Modroukas et
0.85 100 bonded to flowing air on
al. [3]
The objective of this paper is to describe a miniature conventional MEA cathode
Silicon wafers 63 with pure
hydrogen fuel cell that produces 4 times higher power Meyers et al.
0.9
Not
bonded to O2 flowing on
output than other previously reported miniature hydrogen [4] Given
conventional MEA cathode
fuel cells (Table 1) and its integration with a metal Silicon wafers 35 with
hydride based H2 generator. Yeom et al.[5] 0.95 100 bonded to Nafion stagnant air on
cathode
MEMS based fuel cells have been proposed to replace Silicon wafers 13.7 with
batteries in distributed sensor networks, on chip power, Zhiyong et bonded to Nafion pure O2
0.96 123
and implantable devices. However, MEMS based fuel al.[6] flowing on
cells give performance no better than miniature batteries cathode
[1-9]. Prior to our work, the best MEMS based Nafion filled 18 with pure
Pichonat et al
0.8 7 silicon MEA O2 flowing on
hydrogen/air fuel cell only produced 70 mW/cm2 [7]
cathode
compared to ca. 280 mW/cm2 in our device. Yu et al [2] Nafion filled 280 with self
showed 195 mW/cm2, but running pure oxygen on the Our Device 0.95 1 silicon MEA breathing
cathode. Our device shows the highest power output of cathode
those shown previously, operating with a self-breathing
cathode.
In this paper, we will describe the fabrication of the Pt catalyst
miniature fuel cell and we will discuss its advantage as far
25 µm stainless steel
as size is concerned then focus on its performance. Then
the MEMS H2 generator will be briefly discussed and the Nafion 111 (25 µm)
results of its integration with the miniature fuel cell will
be shown. 25 µm stainless steel
The Nafion® membrane is sandwiched between two 25
micron stainless steel sheets with the aid of an adhesive
developed at UIUC. To ensure better bonding the SS-
Nafion sandwich is hot pressed at ca. 130°C for 5
minutes. Pt based catalyst ink was prepared and applied
on top of Nafion® via direct paint method (Fig. 1).
The H2 generator was produced using conventional
microfabrication steps, such as photolithography, ICP- Fig. 1. (Top) Schematic of fuel cell. (Bottom left) Fuel
DRIE, etc. cells of 1 and 4 mm2. (Bottom right) H2 generator
Several experiments were then run to characterize the integrated with the fuel cell.
hydrogen utilization rate as well as the IV performance
(table 1 and Fig. 2). The results with the integrated device 1.0 300
0.8
270
240
0.7 210
0.6 180
______________
0.4 120
2
0.3 4 mm electrode area 90