• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.296-301
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• 2017

Recently, there are many efforts focused on development of more economical non-fluorinated membranes for PEMFCs (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells). In this study, sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) (sPEEK) membrane reinforced with poly imide was made to enhance of membrane durability. In order to test durability of single (un-reinforced) membrane and reinforced membrane MEA (Membrane and Electrode Assembly), degradation accelerated stress test was used. Before and after degradation, I-V polarization curve, hydrogen crossover current, electrochemical surface area, membrane resistance and charge transfer resistance were measured. As a result of experiments, hydrogen crossover current of reinforced MEA was lower than that of single MEA, therefor durability of reinforced MEA was higher than that of single MEA. There was not especially short phenomena in reinforced MEA after degradation accelerated stress test.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.9-13
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• 2016

Electrospun poly(ether sulfone) (PES) membrane impregnated with Nafion (PES-N) have been developed for high-temperature polymer-electrolyte membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC). The PES-N obtains highly thermal stability up to $430^{\circ}C$, which is higher than that of the commercial Nafion 212. The PES-N membrane shows a good proton conductivity of about $10^{-2}S\;cm^{-1}$ in a temperature range from $75^{\circ}C$ to $120^{\circ}C$. The membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) with the PES-N membrane exhibits a current density of $1.697A\;cm^{-2}$ at $75^{\circ}C$, and $0.813A\;cm^{-2}$ at $110^{\circ}C$ when the applied voltage is 0.6 V, whereas the MEA with the Nafion 212 membrane shows the current density of $0.647Acm^{-2}$ at $110^{\circ}C$. The results suggest that the PES-N can be a good candidate for a polymer electrolyte membrane of the HT-PEMFC.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.57-64
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• 2010

A performance test of inter propellant seal for a 75 ton class turbopump is conducted using water to evaluate leakage and endurance performance. Each part of fuel pump side and oxidizer pump side for a prototype inter propellant seal has been tested for verifying endurance performance during total accumulated test time 2,100 sec in water. The fuel pump side part with one-stage seal of carbon floating ring shows average leakage rate 13.7 gram/sec under average seal differential pressure 9.4 bar. On the other hand, the oxidizer pump side part with two-stage seal assembly of carbon floating rings shows average leakage rate 7.3 gram/sec under average seal differential pressure 9.5 bar. After the endurance performance test, the inter propellant seal shows good physical condition. A leakage performance test of the inter propellant seal for cryogenic environment will be performed using LN2 in the near future.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.19-26
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• 1988

The low leakage leading pattern has features as the placement of some fresh fuel assemblies in the core interior to reduce the neutron fluence on the pressure vessel and to enhance the neutron economics. But as fresh fuel assemblies are loaded in the core interior, the local power tends to exceed safety limit due to the high reactivity of the fresh assemblies. Therefore, a large number of burnable poisons must be utilized in a low leakage scheme to suppress the high assembly power as well as the excess reactivity. In this study the effects of burnable poisons are treated as a perturbation on the power distribution, and the 'Power Sensitivity Coefficient' concept is adopted. An application study is performed for cycle 1 of the Korea Nuclear Unit-7 (KNU-7) to justify the usefulness of the reverse depletion method coupled with the above concept. To obtain the optimal burnable poision distribution at the given burnup step, the linear programming technique is adopted. The result shows maximum 4.5% error in the amount of burnable poisons between the calculated and the reference values. It is concluded that the design methodology which consists of the reverse depletion, the power sensitivity coefficient concept, and the linear programming technique can be used to find the optimal turnable poison distribution.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.154-159
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• 2016

This paper presents an experimental study of the leakage performance and endurance performance of a mechanical face seal in the 7-ton-class turbopump of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle 2 third-stage engine. We install a mechanical face seal between the fuel pump and turbine to prevent the mixing of the fuel and turbine gas. We design and manufacture a prototype mechanical face seal, which has two parts, namely, a bellows seal assembly and mating ring. We set up a test facility to measure the leakage and endurance of the mechanical face seal. For the similarity tests, we use water under real operating conditions such as high rotational speed, high temperature, and high pressure. Through investigation of the leakage and carbon wear rate, it is possible to evaluate the performance of the mechanical face seal. The results of the leakage and endurance performance test demonstrate the absence of any leakage from the prototype mechanical face seal after a trial run and clarify that the acceptable wear rate fully satisfies the turbopump requirements. Finally, we install a qualified mechanical face seal in a 7-ton-class turbopump and perform a validation test in the turbopump real-propellant test facility in the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. The test results confirm that the mechanical face seal works well under real operating conditions.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.233-239
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• 2009

The electrocatalytic behavior of the PtCo catalyst supported on the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) has been evaluated and compared with commercial Pt/C catalyst in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC). A PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalyst with a Pt:Co atomic ratio of 79:21 was synthesized and applied to a cathode of PEMFC. The structure and morphology of the synthesized PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. As a result of the X-ray studies, the crystal structure of a PtCo particle was determined to be a face-centered cubic(FCC) that was the same as the platinum structure. The particle size of PtCo in PtCo/MWNTs and Pt in Pt/C were 2.0 nm and 2.7 nm, respectively, which were calculated by Scherrer's formula from X-ray diffraction data. As a result we concluded that the specific surface activity of PtCo/MWNTs is superior to Pt/C's activity because of its smaller particle size. From the electrochemical impedance measurement, the membrane electrode assembly(MEA) fabricated with PtCo/MWNTs showed smaller anodic and cathodic activation losses than the MEA with Pt/C, although ohmic loss was the same as Pt/C. Finally, from the evaluation of cyclic voltammetry(CV), the unit cell using PtCo/MWNTs as the cathode electrocatalyst showed slightly higher fuel cell performance than the cell with a commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.226-231
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• 2002

Power densities produced by the permeation of methanol through membranes were directly measured by inserting the membrane in front of anode in a membrane-electrode-assembly of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). The power density was closely related to the loss of power in the DMFC and was strongly affected by temperature. As the cell temperature was increased, the power density resulting from methanol crossover was increased. The increase in methanol crossover had be attributed to diffusion caused or affected by temperature. Methanol crossover a major effect on the performance of a DMFC at a relatively low temperature with $26\%\;loss\;at\;30^{\circ}C$. In order to reduce methanol crossover, a conventional Nafion membrane was modified by the incorporation of Pt or Pd. The reduction in methanol crossover was investigated in these modified membranes by our cell performance measurement. Pt and Pd particles incorporated in the Nafion membranes block methanol pathway and prevent methanol transport through the membranes, which was proved by combining with liquid chromatography.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.187-190
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• 2012

Contamination of ion from cathode air on the membrane and electrode assembly (MEA) is the serious degradation source in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). In this study, concentration of ions in air at industry region, street and seaside were measured. There were comparably high concentration of $Na^+$, $K^+$, $Ca^{2+}$ and $Fe^{3+}$ in this regions. This paper shows the effects of MEA contamination by these ions generated from humidification water. After 170 hours of fuel cell operation using city water as humidification water, the performance of unit cell decrease to 11% of initial performance. The electrolyte membrane easily absorbed foreign contaminant cations due to the stronger affinity of foreign cations with the sulfonic acid group compared to $H^+$. The contaminant ions existing in the interface between the platinum catalyst and ionomer layer turn out to be the most serious factor to decrease cell performance.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.370-375
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• 2013

We analyze the effects of CO poisoning and air bleeding on the performance of a PEM (polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell stack fabricated using commercial MEA (membrane electrode assembly). Dynamic response data from the experiments on the performance of a stack are identified by obtaining steady-state gains and time-constants of the first-order system model expressed as a first-order differential equation. It is found that the cell voltage of the stack decreases by 1.3-1.6 mV as the CO concentration rises by 1 ppm. The time elapsed to reach a new steady state after a change in the CO concentration is shortened as the magnitude of the change in the CO concentration increases. In general, the steady-state gain becomes bigger and the time-constant gets smaller with increasing the air concentration (air-bleeding level) in the reformate gas to restore the cell voltage. However, it is possible to recover 87%-96% of the original cell voltages, which are measured with free of CO, within 1-30 min by introducing the bleed air as much as 1% of the reformate gas into the stack.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.503-506
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• 2005

The PWR Nuclear Fuel assembly consists of more than 250 fuel rods that are supported by leaf springs in the cells of more than 10 Spacer Grids (SG) along the rod length. Since it is not easy to conduct mechanical tests on a full-scale model basis, the small-scaled rod bundle (5$\times$5) is generally used for various performance tests during the development stage. As one of the small-scaled tests, a flow test should be carried out in order to verify the performance of the spacer grid like the coolant mixing performance and to obtain the Flow-Induced Vibration (FIV) characteristics of the rod bundle over the specified flow range. A vibration test should be also performed to obtain the modal parameters of the bundle prior to the flow test. In this study, we want to develop the estimation procedure of the damping ratio for the small scaled test bundle. For the damping factor of the rod bundle and the grid case at the first vibration mode, as one of the vibration tests, a so-called pluck testing has been performed in air as a preliminary test prior to in-flow damping measurement test. Logarithmic decrement method is used for calculation of the damping ratio. Estimated damping ratio of the rod bundle is about 0.7% with reasonable error of 2% for the previous results. Nonlinear behavior of the rod bundle might be stem mainly Iron the rod-grid support configuration.