Passive control of the concentration boundary layer in microfluidic fuel cells using Dean vortices

Microfluidic fuel cells are limited by the formation of concentration boundary layers at the electrodes, resulting in low power density and low fuel utilization. This work demonstrates a novel method to enhance the diffusion-limited mass transport by decreasing the size of the concentration boundary layer using Dean vortices. These vortices are induced by a curved microchannel and enhance the mass transport of fresh reactant towards the electrodes. Numerical simulations were performed to show the influence of the Dean vortices on the performance of a microfluidic fuel cell. Furthermore, a curved microfluidic device with segmented electrodes was fabricated, which allows to experimentally investigate the effect of the enhanced diffusion-limited mass transport on the current density of a model redox couple and thus to prove the concept and the numerical results. It is shown that the Dean vortices, evolving in the curved channel, cause a convective transport of fresh solution towards the electrodes yielding a high current density and resulting in an improvement of 30% using a curved microfluidic fuel cell instead of a straight one. On condition that diffusive and convective mass transport are well-balanced, this approach promises not only a higher power density, but also a much higher fuel utilization.