STUDY ON METHANOL FUEL-CELL WITH HYDROCARBON HIGH-MOLECULAR POLYMER ELECTROLYTE

A direct methanol fuel cell which is operated at a low temperature is the most suitable as portable power sources. But a conventional methanol fuel cell, which uses sulfuric acid as electrolyte, has many defects such as handling or power loss. In this paper, an elctrolyte without sulfuric acid has specially been developed and the properties of the methanol fuel cell with this elctrolyte has been tested. The developed electrolyte was a high-molecular polymer electrolyte prepared by using sodium styrene sulfonate and was insoluble in liquid fuel and had the resistivity lower than 1-omega.cm2. The methanol fuel cell with this electrolyte showed the same excellent cell properties with long life as conventional methanol fuel cell with sulfuric acid electrolyte, which was successfully operated under the high ion conductivity of the electrolyte, without leakage from elctrolyte chamber to supplying side of liquid fuel.