Abstract
Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) have increasingly shown prospects serving as power source for transportation use, stationary power supply and portable electronic devices with the technical advances in the past decade. This research proposes a novel device to deal with the waste generated in μDMFC without external power. It employs natural fluidic physical phenomena, such as condensation, surface tension gradient and capillary force to separate vapor from gas, as well as collect and remove liquid droplets naturally. This device is fabricated by surface treatment with wettability gradient combined with SU-8 channels and DRIE through holes on silicon substrate. Testing results demonstrated very effective vapor condensation and liquid droplet collection and removal process on this simple device.