Electrochimica Acta 52 (2007) 4317–4324

Porous current collectors for passive direct methanol fuel cells

R. Chen, T.S. Zhao ∗
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Received 4 October 2006; received in revised form 5 December 2006; accepted 5 December 2006
Available online 17 December 2006

Abstract
A passive direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) with its cathode current collector made of porous metal foam was investigated experimentally. The
measured polarization curves, constant-current discharging behavior and EIS spectra showed that the passive DMFC having the porous current
collector yielded much higher and much more stable performance than did the cell having the conventional perforated-plate current collector with
high methanol concentration operation. It was demonstrated that the improved performance for the porous current collector was attributed to: (i)
the enhanced oxygen transport on the cathode as a result of a larger specific transport area, (ii) the increased operating temperature as a result of
the lower effective thermal conductivity of the porous structure, and (iii) the faster water removal as a result of the capillary action in the porous
structure, The experimental results also revealed that the porous current collector with a smaller pore size yielded higher performance as a result
of the lower cell resistance.
© 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fuel cell; Passive DMFC; Metal foam; Effective thermal conductivity; Cell performance; Oxygen transport

1. Introduction
The high energy density of liquid methanol as well as sim-
ple and compact power systems make the direct methanol fuel
cells (DMFC) a promising power source for portable electronic
devices. Over the past decade, extensive efforts [1–8] have been
made to the study of the DMFC with the fuel fed by a liquid
pump and oxidant fed by a gas compressor. In order to make the
DMFC more competitive with conventional battery technolo-
gies, however, it is essential to eliminate some auxiliary devices
such as liquid pumps and gas fans/blowers so that the overall
DMFC system becomes much simpler and much more com-
pact. For this reason, the concept of a passive DMFC without
external pumps and other ancillary devices has been proposed
and studied [9–18]. A typical passive-feed DMFC consists of a
fuel reservoir, an anode current collector, a membrane electrode
assembly (MEA), and a cathode current collector. Methanol is
introduced to the active layer primarily by diffusion without any
external means of liquid transport and oxygen is taken passively
from the ambient air without any means of air movement. This
type of passive DMFCs not only offers the advantage of simple
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +852 2358 8647; fax: +852 2358 1543.
E-mail address: metzhao@ust.hk (T.S. Zhao).
and compact systems but also makes it possible to eliminate the
parasitic power losses for powering ancillary devices required in
active DMFCs. Because of these advantages, the passive DMFC
has received much more attention. Chen and Yang [10] inves-
tigated the effect of operating conditions on the power density
of an air-breathing DMFC. Liu et al. [11] studied sintered stain-
less steel fiber felt as the gas diffusion layer in an air-breathing
DMFC. The effect of methanol concentration was also studied
in this work. Kim et al. [12] fabricated and tested a single cell
and monopolar DMFC stack operating under passive and air-
breathing conditions. Shimizu et al. [13] reported their activities
regarding the research and development of DMFCs that oper-
ated passively at room temperature. Park et al. [15] reported the
optimal methanol solution appeared at 4.0 M in passive DMFCs.
Kho et al. [17] investigated the variation in the open circuit volt-
age (OCV) and the cell temperature with time as a consequence
of the methanol crossover.
The previous studies have indicated that the passive DMFC
usually has to be operated with higher methanol concentration,
as the methanol transport from a built-in fuel reservoir to the
anode catalyst layer in this type of passive fuel cell relies on
diffusion. Since there is plenty of room up to pure methanol,
methanol transport on the anode is actually not a problem.
Rather, higher methanol concentration offers the advantage of
increasing the energy density of the fuel cell, provided that the

0013-4686/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.electacta.2006.12.015
4318 R. Chen, T.S. Zhao / Electrochimica Acta 52 (2007) 4317–4324
rate of methanol crossover can effectively be reduced. In con-
trast, the problem of mass transport of oxygen and water on
the cathode is more challenging, as this type of fuel cell oper-
ates on the air-breathing mode and there is no external means
to enhance oxygen transport and water removal. As a result, the
passive fuel cell frequently operates under the oxygen-starving
and water-flooding conditions. In addition, it was recently found
that passive DMFCs operate at near room temperature and it
is important to increase the cell operating temperature so that
electrochemical kinetics of both methanol oxidation and oxy-
gen reduction reactions can be improved [18,19]. In summary,
on the constraint without any external means of air movement, it
is critical to design and optimize the architecture of the passive
DMFC to ensure higher oxygen transfer and water removal rates
as well as a higher cell operating temperature.
The cathode current collector is one of the key components
of the passive DMFC, which not only collects the electric cur-
rent but also offers the passages for oxygen and water transport.
Furthermore, since in the passive DMFC, the heat generated
within the cell is predominately lost from the cathode current
collector, it is essential to employ a material with low effective
thermal conductivity as the cathode current collector such that
the heat loss can be lowered and the cell can be operated at a
higher temperature to achieve better performance. Therefore, in
the passive DMFC, the cathode current collector must have high
electric conductivity, good mechanical strength, more uniform
transport area and low effective thermal conductivity. In this
work, a passive DMFC with its cathode current collector made
of porous metal foam was investigated experimentally. We show
that this type of porous current collector can not only provide a
higher oxygen transfer rate and a more effective water removal
rate, but also can render a higher cell operating temperature.
Fig. 1. Schematic of the passive DMFC.
As a consequence, the cell having this type of porous current
collector yielded significantly higher performance and much
more stable operation than did the cell having the conventional
perforated-plate current collector.
2. Experimental
2.1. Membrane and electrode assembly (MEA)
A pretreated Nafion 115 membrane with a thickness of
125 ␮m was employed in this work. The pretreatment proce-
dures included boiling the membrane in 5 vol.% H2 O2 , washing
in DI water, boiling in 0.5 M H2 SO4 and washing in DI water for
1 h in turn. The pretreated membranes were kept in the DI water
prior to the fabrication of MEAs. Single-side ELAT electrodes
from ETEK were used in both anode and cathode, where carbon
cloth (E-TEK, Type A) were used as the backing support layer
with 30 wt% PTFE wet-proofing treatment. The catalyst load-
ing on the anode side was 4.0 mg/cm2 with PtRu black (1:1 a/o),
while the catalyst loading on the cathode side was 2.0 mg/cm2
using 40 wt% Pt on Vulcan XC-72. Furthermore, 0.8 mg/cm2 dry
Nafion® ionomer was coated onto the surface of each electrode.
Finally, MEA with an active area of 4.0 cm2 were fabricated
by hot pressing at 135 ◦ C and 4 MPa for 3.0 min. More detailed
information about the MEA fabrication can be found elsewhere
[20].
2.2. Single cell fixture
As shown in Fig. 1, the MEA mentioned above was sand-
wiched between an anode and a cathode current collector. The
entire cell setup was then held together between an anode and a
 R. Chen, T.S. Zhao / Electrochimica Acta 52 (2007) 4317–4324
cathode fixture, both of which were made of transparent organic
glass. A 5.0 mL methanol solution reservoir was built in the
anode fixture. Methanol was transferred into the catalyst layer
from the built-in reservoir, while oxygen, from the surrounding
air, was transferred into the cathode catalyst layer through the
opening of the cathode fixture. The cell temperature was mea-
sured by a thermocouple (Type T), which was installed on the
outer surface of the anode gas diffusion layer. The anode cur-
rent collector was made of a perforated 316L stainless steel plate
of 1.5 mm in thickness. Two different types of cathode current
Fig. 2. Schematic of the current collector. (a) Perforated-plate current collector
and (b) Porous current collector.
4319
collectors, as shown in Fig. 2, were fabricated and tested. One
was the conventional perforated-plate current collector made
of a 316L stainless steel plate, while the other was the porous
current collector made of a Ni–Cr alloy metal foam plate of
1.0 mm in thickness. The Ni–Cr alloy metal foam supplied by
the RECEMAT® International offers over 95% porosity and
the estimated average pore diameter of 0.4 mm. A plurality of
2.6 mm-circular holes was drilled in both the current collectors,
serving as the passages of fuel and oxidant, which resulted in an
open ratio of 47.8%. A 200 nm platinum layer was sputtered onto
the surface of the perforated-plate and porous current collectors
to reduce the contact resistance with the electrodes.
2.3. Electrochemical instrumentation and test conditions
An Arbin BT2000 electrical load interfaced to a computer
was employed to control the condition of discharging and record
the voltage–current curves. For each discharging current point
along the I–V curve, a 60 s waiting time was used to obtain the
stable voltage. The temperature of the cell was measured by the
Arbin BT2000 built-in function.
All the experiments of the passive DMFCs were performed at
room temperatures of 21.8–22.6 ◦ C and the relative humidity of
63–75%. Prior to the performance test, the MEA was installed
in an active cell fixture and activated at 70 ◦ C about 24 h. During
the activation period, 1.0 M methanol was fed at 1.0 mL min−1 ,
while oxygen was supplied under atmospheric pressure at a flow
rate of 50 mL min−1 .
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 3 compares the cell performance of the porous and
perforated-plate current collectors with 2.0 M methanol con-
centration operation. The polarization curves at low current
densities do not show too much difference between both the
current collectors. With increasing current density, the voltage
with the porous current collector became lower than that with
the perforated-plate current collector. However, at high current
Fig. 3. Comparison in cell performance between different cathode current col-
lectors. Anode: 2.0 and 4.0 M methanol; cathode: room temperature: 22.1 ◦ C,
relative humidity: 75%.
4320 R. Chen, T.S. Zhao / Electrochimica Acta 52 (2007) 4317–4324
densities, the perforated-plate current collector tended to show
a rapid decline in voltage, implying that the corresponding lim-
iting current density of the perforated-plate current collector
would be lower than that of the porous current collector. The
performance behavior shown in Fig. 3 for lower methanol con-
centration can be explained as follows. The cathode current
collector affects the performance of the passive DMFC in two
major aspects: oxygen transport and water removal (flooding)
on the cathode. In addition, different types of current collec-
tors may cause different internal electrical resistances due to the
contact between the gas diffusion layer and the current collec-
tor. Since the rate of methanol crossover is lower with lower
methanol concentration operation, the demand of the oxygen
on the cathode is smaller. Under such a circumstance, both the
porous and perforated-plate current collectors may provide suf-
ficient oxygen at low current densities. Hence, at low current
densities, both the current collectors did not make difference in
cell performance. As current density increases, the ohmic loss
becomes more important in the voltage losses. We measured the
internal cell resistance of the passive DMFC with both current
collectors and found the cell with the porous current collector
(630 m cm2 ) was almost twice larger than the cell with the
perforated-plate current collector (324 m cm2 ). The increased
internal cell resistance was attributed to the increased contact
resistance between the porous current collector and the gas diffu-
sion layer, as the porous plate has an extremely high (over 95%)
porosity. As a result, the higher internal cell resistance of the cell
with the porous current collector led to lower cell voltages in
moderate current densities. As current density further increases,
the demand of oxygen supply increases. In the cell with the
perforated-plate current collector, oxygen is transported to the
catalyst layer through the drilled holes in the current collector.
In the cell with the porous current collector, however, oxygen
can be supplied to the catalyst layer not only through the drilled
holes but also through other pores of the porous plate. Hence, the
use of the porous current collector offers a much lower overall
mass transfer resistance of oxygen, leading to higher cell per-
formance. Moreover, the reduced water flooding resulting from
the capillary force in the porous plate can also enhance the oxy-
gen transport to improve the cell performance. In addition, the
cell operating temperature was measured by installing a ther-
mocouple at the outer surface of the anodic diffusion layer. The
transient operating temperature of the cell operated with 2.0 M
methanol solution under the OCV condition is shown in Fig. 4.
It is found that the passive DMFC with the porous current col-
lector showed a slightly higher cell operating temperature than
did the perforated-plate current collector. This is in part because
the high porosity of the porous plate causes a lower effective
thermal conductivity compared with the stainless steel plate,
which can reduce the heat loss on the cathode to increase the cell
operating temperature, and in part because the increased oxy-
gen transport can completely oxidize the permeated methanol
and produce more heat, resulting in the increased cell operating
temperature. The higher temperature led to the improved electro-
chemical kinetics of methanol oxidation and oxygen reduction
reaction, thereby a better performance at high current densities.
However, since the temperature difference between both the cur-
Fig. 4. Variation in cell operating temperature. Anode: 2.0 and 4.0 M methanol;
cathode: room temperature: 22.1 ◦ C, relative humidity: 75%.
rent collectors at the low methanol concentration operation is
rather small. Therefore, at high current densities, the improved
cell performance of passive DMFC with the porous current col-
lector is mainly attributed to the enhanced oxygen transfer rate
as a result of the larger specific transport area and the reduced
water flooding as a result of the capillary force in the porous
plate.
We now present the cell performance of the passive
DMFC with 4.0 M methanol concentration operation in Fig. 3.
Compared with the cell performance at the lower methanol con-
centration of 2.0 M, it can be seen from Fig. 3 that the cell
performance, including the limiting current density and the
peak power density, increased from 23.35 to 28.43 mW/cm2
when methanol concentration was increased from 2.0 to 4.0 M.
The increased performance as a result of higher methanol con-
centration can be mainly attributed to the increased methanol
permeation rate, which increases the operating temperature and
thus improves the electrochemical kinetics of both methanol oxi-
dation and oxygen reduction reactions [18]. It is interesting to
notice from Fig. 3 that at low current densities the porous current
collector yielded higher voltages, including open circuit voltage
(OCV), than did the perforated-plate current collector, and at
moderate current densities, the cell voltages for both the cur-
rent collectors were almost the same. At high current densities,
the perforated-plate current collector exhibited a rapid drop in
voltage, meaning that the limiting current density was almost
reached. However, the cell with the porous current collector
was still away from reaching the limiting current density. This
behavior confirms that the overall mass transfer resistance of
the porous current collector is lower than that of the perforated-
plate current collector. In addition, the measured cell operating
temperature under the OCV condition shown in Fig. 4 indicates
that the porous current collector showed a higher cell operating
temperature, which can be attributed to the following factors.
First, the higher oxygen transfer rate using the porous current
collector yields a higher rate of the exothermic reaction between
 R. Chen, T.S. Zhao / Electrochimica Acta 52 (2007) 4317–4324
Fig. 5. Nyquist plots of passive DMFC impedance spectra. Cell voltage: 0.30 V;
anode: 4.0 M methanol; cathode: room temperature: 22.4 ◦ C, relative humidity:
75%.
the permeated methanol and oxygen on the cathode. Second, the
lower effective thermal conductivity of the porous current col-
lector reduces the heat loss to the ambient. As a result, the use
of the porous plate as the cathode current collector can lead
to a higher cell operating temperature. The higher operating
temperature enhances the electrochemical kinetics of methanol
oxidation and oxygen reduction, resulting in a higher OCV and
higher voltages at low current densities. At moderate current
densities, the improved electrochemical kinetics as a result of
the increased operating temperature and the increased oxygen
transfer rate compensated the higher internal cell resistance of
the cell with the porous current collector. As a result, the volt-
ages at moderate current densities became almost the same with
both the current collectors. In summary, the enhanced oxygen
transfer rate and the lower effective thermal conductivity of the
porous current collector are two major reasons that yielded bet-
ter cell performance of the passive DMFC with higher methanol
concentration operation.
As mentioned above, the improved performance of the pas-
sive DMFC with the porous current collector can be mainly
attributed to the enhanced oxygen transfer rate on the cath-
ode. In order to further prove this point, the electrochemical
impedance spectra (EIS) for the passive DMFC with the porous
and perforated-plated current collectors were measured at 0.3 V
with 4.0 M methanol solution. The impedance spectra are com-
pared in Fig. 5. It is seen from this figure that the cell with
the porous current collector showed a larger impedance spec-
tra than did the perforated-plate current collector at the high
frequency, whereas the porous current collector exhibited a
smaller impedance spectra at the low frequency. The arc at
high frequency is related to the internal cell resistance [21].
The increased contact resistance as a result of an extremely
high (over 95%) porosity resulted in the increased internal cell
resistance for the cell with the porous current collector. Hence,
the porous current collector showed larger impedance spectra
at the high frequency. At the low frequency, the arc was mainly
4321
Fig. 6. Transient discharging voltage at a constant-current density (80 mA cm−2 )
with a start from the cell to be fueled with methanol solutions between different
cathode current collectors. Anode: 4.0 M methanol; cathode: room temperature:
22.6 ◦ C, relative humidity: 71%.
attributed to the mass transfer resistance. The smaller impedance
spectra at the low frequency for the porous current collector
implied that the overall mass transfer resistance was smaller
than the perforated-plate current collector, meaning that the oxy-
gen transfer rate is enhanced. The above EIS spectra confirmed
that the improved performance of the porous current collector
is attributed primarily to the enhanced oxygen transfer rate as a
result of the larger specific transport area.
To investigate the operation stability of the passive DMFC
with the porous current collector, we also tested the long-term
operation of the passive DMFC with both cathode current collec-
tors. The transient discharging cell voltage of the passive DMFC
at a constant-current density (80 mA cm−2 ) with a start from
the cell to be fueled with 5.0 mL methanol solution at 4.0 M is
shown in Fig. 6. It is seen that both the perforated-plate current
collector and porous current collectors exhibited an increase in
voltage from the beginning to about 15 min as a result of the
increased operating temperature, as evidenced from the simul-
taneously measured temperature shown in Fig. 7. It is interesting
to notice that in this initial period the perforated-plate current
collector yielded higher voltages than did the porous current
collector. This can be attributed to the fact that the cell with
the perforated-plate current collector has a lower internal cell
resistance. However, after 15 min, the voltage of the cell with
perforated-plate current collect began to drop sharply, whereas
the voltage of the cell with the porous current collector con-
tinued to increase. During the tests, it was also observed that a
large amount of liquid water was built-up in the perforated-plate
current collector, leading to a rapid decrease in the oxygen trans-
fer rate, thereby a lower cell operating temperature and lower
cell voltage. However, this was not the case for the cell with
the porous current collector. It is significant to notice that the
porous current collector yielded substantially higher voltages
than did the perforated-plate current collector. The improved
performance can be mainly attributed to the enhanced oxygen
4322 R. Chen, T.S. Zhao / Electrochimica Acta 52 (2007) 4317–4324
Fig. 7. Comparison in cell operating temperatures at constant-discharging con-
dition between different cathode current collectors. Anode: 4.0 M methanol;
cathode: room temperature: 22.6 ◦ C, relative humidity: 71%.
transport in the porous plate as the result of the larger specific
mass transfer area and the faster water removal rate due to the
capillary action in such a porous structure. It is also noticed from
Fig. 6 that the perforated-plate current collector exhibited signif-
icant fluctuations during the discharge period, mainly because
of the periodic buildup and removal of liquid water in this type
of current collector. In contrast, the cell with the porous current
collector discharged much more stably.
It should be mentioned that the methanol consumption due
to the electrochemical reaction and methanol crossover caused a
decrease in methanol concentration in the fuel reservoir. There-
fore, the discharging behaviors for both the current collectors
shown in Fig. 6 were actually caused by the combined effect of
the time-dependent methanol concentration, oxygen transport
and cell operating temperature. In order to further demonstrate
the improved performance using the porous current collector was
due to the enhanced mass transport of oxygen instead of other
factors, we tested the same DMFC with methanol solution sup-
plied by a pump while keeping the cathode at the air-breathing
operation mode and maintaining a fixed cell operating temper-
ature. To this end, the anode current collector for the passive
operation mode was replaced by a current collector made of a
316L stainless steel plate with a thickness of 1.0 mm, in which
a single serpentine flow field, consisting of a flow channel with
a cross-sectional area of 1.0 mm × 1.0 mm, was formed. Simi-
larly, to reduce the contact resistance between the anode current
collector and electrode, a 200 nm platinum layer was sputtered
onto the surface of the anode current collector. The methanol
solution with 4.0 M was supplied with the flow rate controlled
by a digital HPLC micro-pump (Series III). To ensure that all
the experiments were performed with the same mass transfer
rate of methanol and with the same heat removal rate from
the cell by the methanol stream, methanol was supplied at a
flow rate of 1.0 mL min−1 . The cell operating temperature was
controlled at 30 ◦ C by a temperature controller. The transient
Fig. 8. Transient discharging voltage at a constant-current density (80 mA cm−2 )
with the active methanol feed between different cathode current collectors.
Temperature: 30 ◦ C; anode: 4.0 M methanol, 1.0 mL min−1 ; cathode: room tem-
perature: 21.8 ◦ C, relative humidity: 63%.
discharging voltage at a constant-current density of 80 mA cm−2
between the cell with the porous current collector and the cell
with the perforated-pate current collector under the condition of
the cathode air-breathing operation but the active methanol feed
is compared in Fig. 8. It is seen that although the perforated-plate
current collector yielded higher voltage in the initial period, but
the porous current collector exhibited substantially higher volt-
ages during the remaining discharge period. This proves that
the improved performance using the porous current collector is
because of the enhanced oxygen transport as a result of the larger
specific mass transfer area and the faster water removal rate due
to the capillary action in such a porous structure. In addition,
the comparison between Figs. 6 and 8 indicates that the active
methanol feed operation yielded much more stable cell perfor-
mance than did the passive operation. This fact indicates that the
time-dependent methanol concentration is one of the reasons for
instability in the passive DMFC. Moreover, it is also clear from
Figs. 6 and 8 that the passive methanol feed operation yielded
much better cell performance than did the active operation. This
is because the temperature in the active methanol feed mode was
maintained at 30 ◦ C, whereas the operating temperature of the
passive methanol feed mode was higher. This fact implies that
the temperature effect is a key factor affecting the performance
of the passive DMFC.
In this work, we also tested the passive DMFC using the
porous current collector with and without drilled holes by the
long-term operation with a start from the cell to be fueled with
5.0 mL methanol solution at 4.0 M. The cell performance is com-
pared in Fig. 9. It is seen that the passive DMFC using the porous
current collector without holes showed almost the same perfor-
mance as the cell with drilled holes. This reveals that the porous
structure can provide the sufficient oxygen transfer rate in the
passive DMFC as a result of a larger specific transport area and
the faster water removal rate due to the capillary action in such
a porous structure. This fact also indicates that there is no need
 R. Chen, T.S. Zhao / Electrochimica Acta 52 (2007) 4317–4324
Fig. 9. Transient discharging voltage at a constant-current density (80 mA cm−2 )
with a start from the cell to be fueled with 5.0 mL methanol solution for the
porous current collector with/without holes. Anode: 4.0 M methanol; cathode:
room temperature: 22.6 ◦ C, relative humidity: 71%.
Fig. 10. Effect of the pore size of the porous current collector on the performance
of passive DMFC. Anode: 4.0 M methanol; cathode: room temperature: 22.4 ◦ C,
relative humidity: 75%.
to fabricate holes in the porous plate. Moreover, the effect of
the pore size of the porous plate on the cell performance was
investigated and the results are shown in Fig. 10. It can be seen
from this figure that the porous current collector with the pore
size of 0.4 mm yielded the highest performance. During the test-
ing, we also measured the cell resistance and found that the cell
resistance was increased from 560 to 1216 m cm2 as the pore
size increased from 0.4 to 0.9 mm. Larger pores led to the poor
mechanical support on the gas diffusion layer and thus the poor
contact, resulting in the higher contact resistance. As a conse-
quence, the porous current collector with the pore size of 0.4 mm
showed the highest performance.
4. Concluding remarks
A passive DMFC with its cathode current collector made of
porous metal foam was fabricated and investigated experimen-
4323
tally. The experimental results showed that although the passive
DMFC with the porous current collector has a higher internal
cell resistance, the cell performance of the passive DMFC having
the porous current collector still yielded much better perfor-
mance than did the perforated-plate current collector under the
high methanol concentration operation and high current densi-
ties. It was demonstrated that the improved performance for the
porous current collector was attributed to the enhanced oxygen
transport on the cathode as a result of a larger specific trans-
port area, the increased operating temperature as a result of the
lower effective thermal conductivity of the porous structure, and
the more effective water removal as a result of the capillary
action in such a porous structure. The EIS results further con-
firmed that the porous current collector exhibited a lower overall
mass transfer resistance on the cathode as a result of a larger
specific transport area and thus enhanced the oxygen transport.
The constant-current discharging tests showed that the passive
DMFC with the porous current collector yielded better and much
more stable performance than did the cell with the conventional
perforated-plate current collector. It was also shown that the sig-
nificant improvement on the operation stability was attributed to
the fact that the capillary action in the porous current collector
can reduce the liquid water buildup on the cathode. In addition,
it is found that the porous current collector with the pore size
of 0.4 mm showed the highest performance because of the low-
est cell resistance. Moreover, the use of the porous plate as the
cathode current collector can greatly reduce the weight of the
overall DMFC system.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a
grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Spe-
cial Administrative Region, China (Project No. 622305). The
authors also thank RECEMAT® International for supplying the
metal foam samples in this work.
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