Numerical Simulation of Micro Direct Methanol Fuel Cells Using COMSOL

利用CFD软件COMSOL对微型直接甲醇燃料电池(Micro Direct Methanol Fuel Cell, µDMFC)进行模拟仿真分析，该三维稳态模型综合考虑了电化学动力学、化学反应和组分传递的耦合过程，分析了电池内部物质的传输与扩散层和催化层的结构参数对电池性能的影响。分析结果表明，扩散层厚度对电池性能的影响很大，选择合适的扩散厚度20 - 40 mm，可以获得更好的电池输出性能。 This paper presents a study of numerical simulation and analysis of Micro Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (Micro Direct Methanol Cell, µDMFC) by using COMSOL. The three-dimensional steady-state model is set up in which the electrochemical kinetics, chemical reactions and composition of the coupling process are taken into consideration. We analyze the transport of the internal material in battery and influence of the structure parameters of diffusion layers and catalyst layers on the performance of the battery. The results show that the thickness of diffusion layer will greatly affect the performance of the battery, and when thickness of diffusion layer is chosen as 20 - 40 mm, better output performance of µDMFC can be obtained.