Improvement in performance of a direct ethanol fuel cell: Effect of sulfuric acid and Ni-mesh

A direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC) is developed with low catalyst loading at anode and cathode compared to that reported in the literature. Pt/Ru (40%:20% by wt.)/C and Pt-black were used as anode and cathode catalyst with loadings in the range of 0.5–1.2 mg/cm². The temperatures of anode and cathode were varied from 34 °C to 110 °C, and the pressure was maintained at 1 bar. Although low catalyst loading was used, the cell performance is enhanced by 40–50% with the use of low concentration of sulfuric acid in ethanol and Ni-mesh as current collector at the anode. The power density 15 mW/cm² at 32 mA/cm² of current density is obtained from the single cell with 0.5 mg/cm² loading of Pt–Ru/C at anode (90 °C) and Pt-black at cathode (110 °C). The performance of DEFC increases with the increase in ethanol and sulfuric acid concentrations, electrocatalyst loadings up to 1 mg cm⁻² at anode and cathode. However, the performance of DEFC decreases with further increase in electrocatalyst loading.     

考虑平稳随机响应的显式结构拓扑优化

随机载荷是工程结构在服役中经常承受的一种复杂的载荷形式,通常采用统计学特性对其进行描述。对随机载荷作用下的结构进行拓扑优化设计是一项极具挑战性的工作,其主要难点在于,(1) 传统隐式拓扑优化方法的设计变量数巨大,且用于结构动态性能拓扑优化问题时存在虚假模态等数值不稳定问题; (2) 对结构的随机动力响应统计量及其灵敏度进行计算需要极大的计算量; (3) 隐式拓扑优化框架下的分析模型与优化模型强耦合,导致结构有限元模型具有极高的自由度,进一步加剧了上述困难。本文基于移动可变形组件框架和虚拟激励法理论,提出了一种平稳随机载荷作用下结构的显式拓扑优化设计方法。通过将一系列可移动和可变形的结构组件作为优化的基础单元,实现了使用少量设计变量描述结构拓扑构型的目的。采用虚拟激励法、自由度删除技术和模态位移法有效降低了对结构进行随机振动分析和灵敏度分析的计算量。在此基础上,以结构柔顺度的标准差为目标函数、以设计域内实体材料的体积为约束条件,实现了限带白噪声作用下结构的拓扑优化设计,并通过数值算例验证了本文方法的有效性。