Microfluidic hydrogen fuel cell with a liquid electrolyte.

We report the design and characterization of a microfluidic hydrogen fuel cell with a flowing sulfuric acid solution instead of a Nafion membrane as the electrolyte. We studied the effect of cell resistance, hydrogen and oxygen flow rates, and electrolyte flow rate on fuel cell performance to obtain a maximum power density of 191 mW/cm2. This flowing electrolyte design avoids water management issues, including cathode flooding and anode dry out.

Synthesis and aggregation behavior of thermally responsive star polymers.

To mimic the three-dimensional (3-D) globular architecture resulting from the precise positioning of hydrophobic/hydrophilic domains (blocks) of naturally occurring proteins, water-soluble linear and star homopolymers of N,N'-dimethylacrylamide (DMA) were synthesized with prescribed molecular weights via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and subsequently used as macro chain transfer agents for block copolymerization with N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM). For the star block copolymers, the interior block consisted of NIPAM while the exterior block was DMA. Since polyNIPAM thermally switches from hydrophilic to hydrophobic, the 3-D solution conformations of the polymers were studied as a function of temperature using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), static light scattering (SLS), and dynamic light scattering (DLS).

Air-breathing laminar flow-based microfluidic fuel cell.

This communication reports the design and characterization of an air-breathing laminar flow-based microfluidic fuel cell (LFFC). The performance of previous LFFC designs was cathode-limited due to the poor solubility and slow transport of oxygen in aqueous media. Introduction of an air-breathing gas diffusion electrode as the cathode addresses these mass transfer issues.