STUDY ON VARIOUS PARAMETERS OF DIRECT METHANOL BASED FUEL CELL

Abstract

Fuel cells are used for power generation in conventional large-scale power plants which use non-renewable fuels with significant adverse ecological and environmental impacts. Fuel cell has gained importance in recent times due to limited petroleum resources, having high efficiency, and causes less pollution and occupies less installation space. Methanol based fuel cell technology has came up as a better alternative for power generation and is generally preferred over other fuel cells. Recent advancement has been made for improving efficiency by utilizing Pt/Ru catalyst in membrane electrode assembly (MEA) for fuel cells application by breathing process of proton exchange membrane , development of naphthalene based sulphonated polyimide membranes ,which has shown better results ,and machined graphite hardware has been replaced by alternative non machined flow field bipolar plate hardware. Fuel cell systems are better candidates for small-scale decentralized power generation and can supply combined heat and power to commercial buildings, hospitals, airports and military installation-at-remote-locations; The efficiency and performance of fuel cells is based on various parameters. In the thesis report we will describe the effect of different parameters those affects the performance and efficiency of fuel cell like membrane thickness, cell current density, cell temperature, methanol solution concentration, oxygen flow rate, etc. Moreover on the basis of these parameters the advantages and disadvantages of methanol based fuel cell over the other commercially available fuel cells will be discussed. The focus is based on recent trends in the field of methanol based fuel cell technology and their effectiveness from economical point of view for the process industry. The dissertation report represents the analysis of main parameter like membrane thickness, temperature, pressure, concentration which hardly affects the performance of methanol based fuel cell.