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US 6,420,059 B1Granted
Direct methanol feed fuel cell and system
AssigneeCalifornia Institute of Technology
InventorsSubbarao Surampudi, Harvey A. Frank, Sekharipuram R. Narayanan, William Chun, Barbara Jeffries-Nakamura, Andrew Kindler, Gerald Halpert
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Improvements to non acid methanol fuel cells include new formulations for materials. The platinum and ruthenium are more exactly mixed together. Different materials are substituted for these materials. The backing material for the fuel cell electrode is specially treated to improve its characteristics. A special sputtered electrode is formed which is extremely porous.
Claims2
A method of operating a direct feed methanol fuel cell, comprising:
- receiving pressurized gas on an input side of the fuel cell;
- feeding liquid methanol directly to an anode of the fuel cell;
- operating the fuel cell using the pressurized gas;
- receiving output gas from the fuel cell;
- and
- recovering pressure from the output gas.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.