Study on the Synthesis and Grafting of CNTs and CNTs-assisted MEA for DMFC Applications

• Main Authors: Hsin-Chin Hung, 洪新欽
• Other Authors: 林啟瑞
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/2tn242

博士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 機電科技研究所 === 95 === This research aims to study the synthesis of carbon nano-tubes (CNTs) and the fabrication of CNTs-assisted membrane electrode assembly (MEA) for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) applications. At first, CNTs were grown using the grafting method. The grafted CNTs were analyzed on effects of size-confinement and microwave plasma. The size-confinement effect was observed to have significant effects on grafted CNTs growth. The mathematical model for estimating the diameter of the grafted CNTs was verified experimentally, results show that grafted CNTs with diameter of 2 nm is well coincide with the mathematical model. A process is developed to fabricate the air-breathing type DMFC. A novel grafting method to fabricate the CNTs-assisted MEA of DMFC is presented. Results show that MEA fabricated with grafted CNTs for cathode and E-Tek catalyst electrode for anode have the smallest potential drop and highest open circuit votage (0.6 V), and the peak power can be increased up to 0.009 watts at 0.25 V. Besides, the UV enhanced DMFC have been carried out in this research. Results showed that at the constant cell voltage 0.4 V, the total output energy of 3 wt% 8 ㏄ methanol can vary from 101.6 mW×hr to 226.16 mW×hr by UV light irradiation. From this study, it showed that the techniques is probable using in the fuel cell industry.