Micro direct methanol fuel cell with perforated silicon-plate integrated ionomer membrane

This article describes the fabrication and characterization of a silicon based micro direct methanol fuel cell using a Nafion ionomer membrane integrated into a perforated silicon plate. The focus of this work is to provide a platform for micro- and nanostructuring of a combined current collector and catalytic electrode.

AC impedance spectroscopy is utilized alongside IV characterization to determine the influence of the plate perforation geometries on the cell performance. It is found that higher ratios of perforation increases peak power density, with the highest achieved being 2.5 mW cm−2 at a perforation ratio of 40.3%.

The presented fuel cells also show a high volumetric peak power density of 2 mW cm−3 in light of the small system volume of 480 μL, while being fully self contained and passively feed.