Overview of Micro-Manufactured-Based Micro Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Development for Portable Applications

With increasing demand for portable electronics devices, on-board chips, sensors, actuators in microelectronics, medical, and wireless telecommunication industries, etc., a small-power (milliwatt or subwatt range) alternative power source to lithium ion battery is required. Micro-scale fuel cell, especially micro Direct methanol fuel cell (μDMFC) has attracted attention as a small-size and portable power source, due to the fuel’s capability to deliver high power density per volume and weight. The miniaturization of μDMFC requires special manufacturing techniques different from conventional machining methods in macro-DMFC, which can fabricate the key components in μDMFC and assembly them together in micro-scale level. Thanks to integrated circuit fabrication and Micro-electro-mechanical –system (MEMS), current approach to developing μDMFC is adoption of Silicon micromachining technologies to creating micro-fluidic channels (for fuel and gas delivery). The deposition of thin films of exotic materials using semiconductor techniques is applied to make electrodes and current collector. In the paper, an overview of design and microfabrication of μDMFC was performed. The design configuration of the μDMFCs have been summarized and evaluated. The outputs of the designed and microfabricated μDMFC were analyzed and compared. Finally, the requirements for designing and micro-manufacturing the components and system in μDMFC, and packaging are proposed from technical and cost point of view.