An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations

This paper reports the fabrication, characterization and numerical simulation of an air-breathing membraneless laminar flow-based fuel cell with carbon-fiber-based paper as an anode. The fuel cell uses 1 M formic acid as the fuel. Parameters from experimental results were used to establish a three-d...

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Main Authors: Shaegh, Seyed Ali Mousavi, Nguyen, Nam-Trung, Chan, Siew Hwa
Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2012
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/94439
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7932
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-944392023-03-04T17:18:31Z An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations Shaegh, Seyed Ali Mousavi Nguyen, Nam-Trung Chan, Siew Hwa School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering This paper reports the fabrication, characterization and numerical simulation of an air-breathing membraneless laminar flow-based fuel cell with carbon-fiber-based paper as an anode. The fuel cell uses 1 M formic acid as the fuel. Parameters from experimental results were used to establish a three-dimensional numerical model with COMSOL Multiphysics. The simulation predicts the mass transport and electrochemical reactions of the tested fuel cell using the same geometry and operating conditions. Simulation results predict that the oxygen concentration over an air-breathing cathode is almost constant for different flow rates of the fuel and electrolyte. In contrast, the growth of a depletion boundary layer of the fuel over the anode can be the major reason for low current density and low fuel utilization. At a low flow rate of 10 µl min−1, simulation results show a severe fuel diffusion to the cathode side, which is the main reason for the degradation of the open-circuit potential from 0.78 V at 500 µl min−1 to 0.58 V at 10 µl min−1 as observed in experiments. Decreasing the total flow rate 50 times from 500 µl min−1 to 10 µl min−1 only reduces the maximum power density approximately two times from 7.9 to 3.9 mW cm−2, while fuel utilization increases from 1.03% to 38.9% indicating a higher fuel utilization at low flow rates. Numerical simulation can be used for further optimization, to find a compromise between power density and fuel utilization. Accepted version 2012-05-14T02:54:44Z 2019-12-06T18:56:01Z 2012-05-14T02:54:44Z 2019-12-06T18:56:01Z 2010 2010 Journal Article Shaegh, S. A. M., Nguyen, N. T., & Chan, S. H. (2010). An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode: experimental and numerical investigations. Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 20(10). https://hdl.handle.net/10356/94439 http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7932 10.1088/0960-1317/20/10/105008 159363 en Journal of micromechanics and microengineering © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd. This is the author created version of a work that has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication by Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, IOP Publishing Ltd. It incorporates referee’s comments but changes resulting from the publishing process, such as copyediting, structural formatting, may not be reflected in this document. The published version is available at: [http://dx.doi.org.ezlibproxy1.ntu.edu.sg/10.1088/0960-1317/20/10/105008]. 21 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
spellingShingle DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
Shaegh, Seyed Ali Mousavi
Nguyen, Nam-Trung
Chan, Siew Hwa
An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations
description This paper reports the fabrication, characterization and numerical simulation of an air-breathing membraneless laminar flow-based fuel cell with carbon-fiber-based paper as an anode. The fuel cell uses 1 M formic acid as the fuel. Parameters from experimental results were used to establish a three-dimensional numerical model with COMSOL Multiphysics. The simulation predicts the mass transport and electrochemical reactions of the tested fuel cell using the same geometry and operating conditions. Simulation results predict that the oxygen concentration over an air-breathing cathode is almost constant for different flow rates of the fuel and electrolyte. In contrast, the growth of a depletion boundary layer of the fuel over the anode can be the major reason for low current density and low fuel utilization. At a low flow rate of 10 µl min−1, simulation results show a severe fuel diffusion to the cathode side, which is the main reason for the degradation of the open-circuit potential from 0.78 V at 500 µl min−1 to 0.58 V at 10 µl min−1 as observed in experiments. Decreasing the total flow rate 50 times from 500 µl min−1 to 10 µl min−1 only reduces the maximum power density approximately two times from 7.9 to 3.9 mW cm−2, while fuel utilization increases from 1.03% to 38.9% indicating a higher fuel utilization at low flow rates. Numerical simulation can be used for further optimization, to find a compromise between power density and fuel utilization.
author2 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
author_facet School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Shaegh, Seyed Ali Mousavi
Nguyen, Nam-Trung
Chan, Siew Hwa
format Article
author Shaegh, Seyed Ali Mousavi
Nguyen, Nam-Trung
Chan, Siew Hwa
author_sort Shaegh, Seyed Ali Mousavi
title An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations
title_short An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations
title_full An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations
title_fullStr An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations
title_full_unstemmed An air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations
title_sort air-breathing microfluidic formic acid fuel cell with a porous planar anode : experimental and numerical investigations
publishDate 2012
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/94439
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/7932
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