Introduction of an improved gas chromatographic analysis and comparison of methods to determine methanol crossover in DMFCs

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) are capable of utilising a liquid fuel directly in the fuel cell and they are therefore an interesting option for a variety of mobile and portable applications. Still there are several barriers which have to be overcome before DMFCs are able to compete with conventional technologies. A major restriction in reaching high efficiencies with DMFCs is methanol crossover from anode to cathode. This work discusses several methods to characterise the methanol crossover and introduces a newly developed measurement method which allows an exact determination of methanol crossover in DMFCs with liquid and solid electrolytes.