Compact mixed-reactant fuel cells

The compact mixed-reactant (CMR) fuel cell is an important new "platform" approach to the design and operation of all types of fuel cell stacks. Amongst several other advantages, CMR has the potential to reduce polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) stack component costs by around a third and to raise volumetric power densities by an order of magnitude. Mixed-reactant fuel cells, in which the fuel and oxidant within a cell are allowed to mix, rely upon the selectivity of anode and cathode elcetrocatalysts to separate the electrochemical oxidation of fuel and reduction of oxidant. A comprehensive review of the 50-year history of mixed-reactant literature has demonstrated that such systems can perform as well as and, in some circumstances, much better than conventional fuel cells. The significant innovation that Generics has introduced to this field is to combine the concept of mixed-reactant fuel cells with that of a fully porous membrane electrode assembly (MEA) structure. Passing a fuel-oxidant mixture through a stack of porous cells allows the conventional bipolar flow-field plates required in many fuel cell designs to be eliminated. In a conventional PEM stack, for example, the bipolar carbon flow-field plates may block up to half of the active cell area and account for up to 90% of the volume of the stack and of the order of one-third of the materials costs. In addition to all the advantages of mixed-reactant systems, the "flow-through" mode, embodied in Generics' CMR approach, significantly enhances mass-transport of reactants to the electrodes and can reduce reactant pressure drops across the stack. Redesigning fuel cells to operate in a CMR mode with selective electrodes offers the attractive prospect of much reduced stack costs and significantly higher stack power densities for all types of fuel cell. Initial modeling and proof of principle experiments using an alkaline system have confirmed the validity of the CMR approach and the potential for substantial performance improvements. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.