Intel Corporation

Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Leland Stanford Junior University

Jonathan Posner

Juan G Santiago

Yuji Saito

Friedrich B Prinz

Alan M Myers

Jun Sasahara

Tadahiro Kubota

Tibor Fabian

Suk-Won Cha

John K Eaton

Hideaki Tsuru

Shuhuai Yao

Cullen Buie

Daejoogn Kim

Water flooding at the cathode of a fuel cell is a common problem in fuel cells. By integrating an electroosmotic (EO) pump to remove product water from the cathode area, fuel cell power can be increased. Integration of EO pumps transforms the designs of air channel and air breathing cathodes, reducing air pumping power loads and increasing oxidant transport. Hydration of gas streams, management of liquid reactants, and oxidant delivery can also be accomplished with integrated electroosmotic pumps. Electroosmotic pumps have no moving parts, can be integrated as a layer of the fuel cell, and scale with centimeter to micron scale fuel cells.

Fuel cell with electroosmotic pump

According to some embodiments, a method, system, and apparatus for providing an orientation independent electroosmotic pump. In some embodiments, the method includes an anode and a cathode at different electrical potentials, the anode and cathode are each sealed in an ion-exchange membrane and at least partially immersed in an electrolyte contained in a reservoir of an electroosmotic pump, collecting gases generated by electrolytic decomposition of the electrolyte within a space defined by the ion-exchange membranes that seal the anode and cathode, recombining the collected gases to produce a liquid using a catalyst, the catalyst being located outside of the reservoir, and introducing the produced liquid into the fluid reservoir through an osmotic membrane.

Orientation independent electroosmotic pump

Growing community of inventors

Menlo Park, CA, United States of America

Jonathan Posner