IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v315y2025ics0360544225000039.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Improve energy conversion efficiency of μDMFC stack power system by optimal microscopic catalyst structures and power management

Author

Listed:
  • Fang, Shuo
  • Yang, Guowei
  • Liu, Yuntao
  • Zhao, Chunhui
  • Wang, Ying

Abstract

This paper develops a power system in order to improve the practical energy conversion efficiency of the micro direct methanol fuel cell (μDMFC) stack. The construction of the power system begins with the quantitative evaluation of different microscopic catalyst structures. Based on the evaluating results, this research presents a power management unit according to the microscopic catalyst structure with the highest energy conversion efficiency and the corresponding optimized operating parameters. The main innovation of this research is that the power management unit employs a novel ASIC for DC-DC converter to execute the maximum-efficiency-point-tracking strategy according to the corresponding optimized operating parameters. The experimental energy conversion efficiency of the proposed μDMFC stack power system reaches 30.2 %–32.0 % compared with the 17.0 %–17.5 % of the conventional one during dynamic operation profiles. The energy conversion efficiency improvement achieves at least 12.7 %. Moreover, experimental results show that the output power value of the μDMFC stack power system fits the portable electrical equipment such as unmanned vessels. The proposed μDMFC stack power system shows great superiorities in energy conversion efficiency during practical applications with volume and weight limitations such as portable electrical equipment.

Suggested Citation

  • Fang, Shuo & Yang, Guowei & Liu, Yuntao & Zhao, Chunhui & Wang, Ying, 2025. "Improve energy conversion efficiency of μDMFC stack power system by optimal microscopic catalyst structures and power management," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:315:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225000039
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.134361
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225000039
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.134361?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:315:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225000039. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.