A silicon-based fuel cell micro power system using a microfabrication technique

This paper reports a silicon-based polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell micro power system in which a high active surface area catalyst layer was monolithically integrated with the major components of the PEM fuel cell (gas diffusion layer, flow field, fuel reservoir and current collector). A sputtering method was used to apply the catalyst on a roughly textured substrate. A significant increase in the electro-active area by surface texturing was verified by the results of cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurement. A small internal resistance measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) indicated that the silicon surface roughness did not reduce the electrical conductance of current collectors. The fuel cell devices were tested with both gaseous fuel (hydrogen) and liquid fuel (methanol) at room temperature.