Prevention of the Electrolyte Pumping in the Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell by Means of the Improved Manifoldcasing

용융탄산엽형 연로전지에 있어서 새로운 형태의매니폴드케이싱에 의한 전해질 펌핑 방지에 관한 연구

For commercial application of the MCFC, the life time of the MCFC should exceed 40,000 hours, But the life time of the state-of-the-art MCFC was limited to 15,000 hours. The main reasons of the life time limit can be classified as the deficiency of the electrolyte and cathode dissolution. It has been found that the electrolyte deficiency is caused by the continuous evaporation of the electrolyte. However a recent reaserch shows that an electrolyte pumping phenomenon, which implies, the migration of the electrolyte through the gasket material of the external gas manifold, is also the reason of the electrolyte deficiency. Due to the electrolyte pumping phenomenon, positive end cell of the stack suffers the electrolyte deficiency and negative end cell of stack is flooded with electrolyte. Therefore, the cell performance is degraded. The author invented a new manifoldcasing, which prevents the contact between the wet seal and the gasket of the manifold, and gives a complete elimination of an electrolyte pumping effect.