A Microfabricated Direct Methanol Fuel Cell with Integrated Electroosmotic Pump

This paper reports a novel design, and subsequent performance results, for a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) with a planar silicon electroosmotic (EO) pump for methanol fuel delivery. EO pumps possess no moving parts, produce flow rates on the order of several ml/min, and can be microfabricated from silicon substrates. Maximum flow rates from the EO pumps ranged from 0.25 ml/min to 10 ml/min at applied voltages ranging from 40 V – 100 V with deionized water as the working fluid. The maximum power density of the DMFC is 17.8 mW/cm²at room temperature.