• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.301-305
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• 2007

The performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell could be decreased due to coolant leaked from connection part. Micro pump was used to put small amount of coolant and investigate the effect on fuel cell. The stoichiometric ratio of hydrogen/air was 1.5/2.0, both side of gas was fully humidified, and current density of $400mA/cm^2$ was used as standard condition in this experiment. Constant current method was used to check performance recovery from coolant effect in 3 cell stack. The performance was recovered when coolant was injected in cathode side. On the other hand, the performance was not recovered when coolant was injected in anode side. Ethylene glycol could be converted to CO in oxidation process and cause poisoning effect on platinum catalyst or be adhered on GDL and cause gas diffusion block effect resulting performance decrease. Water with nitrogen gas was supplied in anode side to check performance recovery. Polarization curve, cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to check performance, and gas chromatography was used to check coolant concentration. Constant current method was not enough in full recovery of performance. However, water injection method was proved good method in full recovery of performance.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.411-417
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• 2013

To use as an anode material of lithium secondary battery, graphite-silicon composite powders are prepared by ball-milling with silicon nanoparticles (average diameter 100 nm, 0~50 wt%) and graphite powder (average diameter $15{\mu}m$) and their electrochemical properties are examined. As the silicon content increases, the graphite becomes smaller by the ball-milling and amorphous phase appears whereas the silicon do not suffer the change of nanocrystalline phases and embeds within the amorphous phase of graphite. Cyclic voltammetry at low scan rate reveals that typical oxidation peaks of graphite and silicon appear at 0.2~0.35 and 0.55~0.6 V, respectively, with higher reversibility for repeated cycles. In contrast, the high-scan-rate redox behavior is very irreversible for repeated cycles. High irreversible capacity is exhibited in the initial charging-discharging cycles, but it diminishes as the cycle number increases. The saturated discharge capacity achieves about 485 mAh $g^{-1}$ at 50th cycle for the composite of Si 20 wt%. This is due to the formation of amorphous graphite morphology by the adequate composition (C:Si=8:2 w/w), which efficiently buffers the volume change during alloying/dealloying between silicon and lithium.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.523-530
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• 2019

For the low-Pt electrodes for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEMFCs), the optimization of ionomer content for anode catalyst layers was carried out. A commercial catalyst of 20 wt.% Pt/C was used instead of 50 wt.% Pt/C which is commonly used for PEMFCs. The ionomer content varies from 0.6 to 1.2 based on ionomer to carbon ratio (I/C) and the catalyst layer is formed over the electrolyte by the ultrasonic spray process. Evaluation of the prepared MEA in the unit cell showed that the optimal ionomer content of the air electrode was 0.8 on the I/C basis, while the hydrogen electrode was optimal at the relatively high ionomer content of 1.0. In addition, a large difference in cell performance was observed when the ionomer content of the hydrogen electrode was changed. Increasing the ionomer content from 0.6 to 1.0 by I/C in a hydrogen electrode with 0.05 mg/㎠ platinum loading resulted in more than double cell performance improvements on a 0.6 V. Through the analysis of various electrochemical properties in the single cell, it was assumed that the change in ionomer content of the hydrogen electrode affects the water flow between the hydrogen and air electrodes bounded by the membrane in the cell, which affects the overall performance of the cell. A more specific study will be carried out to understand the water flow mechanism in the future, and this study will show that the optimization process of hydrogen electrode can also be a very important cell design variable for the low-Pt and high-performance MEA.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.137-146
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• 2014

Objectives: Feasibility of electrochemical oxidation of the aqueous non-biodegradable wastewater such as cationic dye Rhodamine B (RhB) has been investigated in an electrochemical reactor with solid polymer electrolyte (SPE). Methods: Nafion 117 cationic exchange membrane as SPE has been used. Anode/Nafion/cathode sandwiches were constructed by sandwiching Nafion between two dimensionally stable anodes (JP202 electrode). Experiments were conducted to examine the effects of applied current (0.5~2.0 A), supporting electrolyte type (0.2 N NaCl, $Na_2SO_4$, and 1.0 g/L NaCl), initial RhB concentration (2.5~30.0 mg/L) on RhB and COD degradation and $UV_{254}$ absorbance. Results: Experimental results showed that an increase of applied current in electrolysis reaction with solid polymer electrolyte has resulted in the increase of RhB and $UV_{254}$ degradation. Performance for RhB degradation by electrolyte type was best with NaCl 0.2 N followed by SPE, and $Na_2SO_4$. However, the decrease of $UV_{254}$ absorbance of RhB was different from RhB degradation: SPE > NaCl 0.2 N > $Na_2SO_4$. RhB and $UV_{254}$ absorbance decreased linearly with time regardless of the initial concentration. The initial RhB and COD degradation in electrolysis reaction using SPE showed a pseudo-first order kinetics and rate constants were 0.0617 ($R^2=0.9843$) and 0.0216 ($R^2=0.9776$), respectively. Conclusions: Degradation of RhB in the electrochemical reactor with SPE can be achieved applying electrochemical oxidation. Supporting electrolyte has no positive effect on the final $UV_{254}$ absorbance and COD degradation. Mineralization of COD may take a relatively longer time than that of the RhB degradation.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.1023-1032
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• 2008

The feasibility study of the application of the photoelectrocatalytic and electrolytic/UV decolorization of Rhodamine B (RhB) was investigated in the photoelectrocatalytic and electrolytic/UV process with $TiO_2$ photoelectrode and DSA (dimensionally stable anode) electrode. Three types of $TiO_2$ photoelectrode were used. Thermal oxidation electrode (Th-$TiO_2$) was made by oxidation of titanium metal sheet; sol-gel electrode (5G-$TiO_2$) and powder electrode (P-$TiO_2$) were made by coating and then heating a layer of titania sol-gel and slurry $TiO_2$ on titanium sheet. DSA electrodes were Ti and Ru/Ti electrode. The relative performance for RhB decolorization of each of the photoelecoodes and DSA electrodes is: Ru/Ti > Ti > SG-$TiO_2$ > Th-$TiO_2$. It was observed that photoelectrocatalytic decolorization of RhB is similar to the sum of the photocatalytic and electrolytic decolorization. Therefore the synergetic effect was not showed in pthotoelectrocatalytic reaction. $Na_{2}SO_{4}$ and NaCl showed different decolorization effect between pthotoelectrocatalytic and electrolytic/UV reaction. In the presence of the NaCl, RhB decolorization of Ru/Ti DSA electrode was higher than that of the other photoelectrode and Ti electrode. Optimum current, NaCl dosage and UV lamp power of the electrolytic/UV process (using Ru/Ti electrode) were 0.75 A, 0.5 g/L and 16 W, respectively.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.943-949
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• 2020

In this work, we prepared a heterojunction anode with a surface layer of SnO₂-Sb-Ni (SSN) on a Ti/IrO₂ electrode by thermal decomposition to improve the electrochemical activity of the Ti/IrO₂ electrode. The Ti/IrO₂-SSN electrode showed significantly improved electrochemical activity compared with Ti/IrO₂. For the 0.1 M NaCl and 0.1 M Na₂SO₄ electrolytes, the onset potential of the Ti/IrO₂-SSN electrode shifted in the positive direction by 0.1 V_SCE and 0.4 V_SCE, respectively. In 2.0-2.5 V voltages, the concentration in Ti/IrO₂-SSN was 2.59-214.6 mg/L Cl₂, and Ti/IrO₂ was 0.55-49.21 mg/L Cl₂. Moreover, the generation of the reactive chlorine species and degradation of Eosin-Y increased by 3.79-7.60 times and 1.06-2.15 times compared with that of Ti/IrO₂. Among these voltages, the generation of the reactive chlorine species and degradation of Eosin-Y were the most improved at 2.25 V. Accordingly, in the Ti/IrO₂-SSN electrode, it can be assumed that the competitive reaction between chlorine ion oxidation and water oxidation is minimized at an applied voltage of 2.25V.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.11-25
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• 2009

Fuel cells are expected to be one of the major clean new energy sources in the near future. However, the slow kinetics of electrocatalytic hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and the high loading of Pt for the anode and cathode material are the urgent issues to be addressed since they determine the efficiency and the cost of this energy source. In this review paper, a new approach was developed for designing electrocatalysts for the HOR and ORR in fuel cells. It was found that the electronic properties of Pt could be fine-tuned by the electronic and geometric effects introduced by the substrate alloy metal and the lateral effects of the neighboring metal atoms. The role of substrate was found reflected in a volcano plot for the HOR and ORR as a function of their calculated d-band centers. This paper demonstrated a viable way to designing the electrocatalysts which could successfully alleviate two issue facing the commercializing of the fuel cell-the cost of electrocatalysts and their efficiency.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.146-152
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• 2016

A combined system with PEMFC and reformer is introduced and optimized for the real use of this kind of system in the future. The hydrogen source to operate the PEMFC system is methanol, which needs two parts of methanol reforming reaction and preferential oxidation (PROX) for the hydrogen fuel process in the combined operation PEMFC system. With the optimized methanol steam reforming condition, we tested PROX reactions in various operation temperature from 170 to 270 ℃ to investigate CO concentration data in the reformed gases. Using these different CO concentration, PEMFC performances are achieved at the combined system. Pt/C and Ru promoted Pt/C were catalysts were used for the anode to compare the stability in CO contained gases. The alloy catalyst of PtRu/C shows higher performance and better resistance to CO than the Pt/C at even high CO amount of 200 ppm, indicating a promotion not only to the activity but also to the CO tolerance. Furthermore, in a system point of view, there is a fluctuation in the PEMFC operation due to the unstable fuel supply. Therefore, we also modified the methanol reforming by a scaled up reactor and pressurization to produce steady operation of PEMFC. The optimized system with the methanol reformer and PEMFC shows a stable performance for a long time, which is providing a valuable data for the PEMFC commercialization.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.14-21
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• 2020

Carbon supports for dispersed platinum (Pt) electrocatalysts in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) are being continuously developed to improve electrochemical performance and catalyst stability. However, carbon supports still require solutions to reduce costs and improve catalyst efficiency. In this study, we prepare well-dispersed Pt electrocatalysts by introducing titanium dioxide (TiO₂) into biomass based nitrogen-doped carbon supports. In order to obtain optimized electrochemical performance, different amounts of TiO₂ component are controlled by three types (Pt/TNC-2 wt%, Pt/TNC-4 wt%, and Pt/TNC-6 wt%). Especially, the anodic current density of Pt/TNC-4 wt% is 707.0 mA g^-1_pt, which is about 1.65 times higher than that of commercial Pt/C (429.1 mA g^-1_pt); Pt/TNC-4wt% also exhibits excellent catalytic stability, with a retention rate of 91 %. This novel support provides electrochemical performance improvement including several advantages of improved anodic current density and catalyst stability due to the well-dispersed Pt nanoparticles on the support by the introduction of TiO₂ component and nitrogen doping in carbon. Therefore, Pt/TNC-4 wt% may be electrocatalyst a promising catalyst as an anode for high-performance DMFCs.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.540-546
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• 2004

We deviced a new graphite-Mn(II) electrode and found that the modified electrode with Mn(II) can catalyze NADH oxidation and $NAD^+$ reduction coupled to electricity production and consumption as oxidizing agent and reducing power, respectively. In fuel cell with graphite-Mn(II) anode and graphite-Fe(III) cathode, the electricity of 1.5 coulomb (A x s) was produced from NADH which was electrochemically reduced by the graphite-Mn(II) electrode. When the initial concentrations of pyruvate and acetaldehyde were adjusted to 40 mM and 200 mM, respectively, about 25 mM lactate and 35 mM ethanol were produced from 40 mM pyruvate and 200 mM acetaldehyde, respectively, by catalysis of ADH and LDH in the electrochemical reactor with $NAD^+$ as cofactor and electricity as reducing power. By using this new electrode with catalytic function, the bioelectrocatalysts are engineered; namely, oxidoreductase (e.g., lactate dehydrogenase) and $NAD^+$ can function for biotransformation without electron mediator and second oxidoreductase for $NAD^+$/NADH recycling.