Suwatchara Danu

Advances in Molecular Sieve Membranes for Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Suwatchara Danu

Novel composite membrane systems for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) have been fabricated and tested. These take the form of a multi-layered structure composing of a commercial Nafion membrane and a novel composite binding layer situated between the anode and the membrane. Within the composite binding layer, inorganic molecular sieve filler particles are evenly dispersed throughout the Nafion matrix presenting a barrier that impedes methanol crossover. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the DMFC performance using composite membrane systems with 3 different types of zeolite fillers. The best novel membrane system was found to yield over 40% improvement in maximum power output compared to the standard DMFC.