A Novel Integration Approach for Combining the Porous Silicon on a Micro Fuel Cell

Abstract

This investigation employs porous silicon as the gas diffusion layer (GDL) in a micro fuel cell by micro-electromechanical-systems (MEMS) fabrication technology. Pt is then deposited on the surface of the porous silicon, to enhance the fuel cell conductivity. The porous silicon with different pore sizes of 10 µm, 30 µm, 50 µm to test performance for GDL, and the fuel cell performances are discussed. The GDL was replaced by porous silicon and used in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Dry etching is applied to a 500 µm-thick layer of silicon to yield fuel channels with a depth of 450 µm and a width of 200 µm. Accordingly, the GDLs of the fuel cell are fabricated using macro-porous silicon technology. Porous silicon was fabricated by deep reactive ion etching (DRIE). The experimental shows the results with different pore size, fuel flow rate and operation condition. The best performance was 9.37 mW/cm2 with dry gas flow rates of H2/O2 at 30/30 ml/min and 10 µm hole.