• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.283-290
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• 2009

This study focuses on the performance characteristics of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) using the AC impedance technique. The experiment was carried out to investigate the optimal operating conditions of PEMFC such as cell temperature, flow rate, humidified temperature and back-pressure. The fuel cell performance was analyzed by DC electronic-loader with constant voltage mode and expressed by voltage-current density. Additionally, AC impedance was measured to analysis of ohmic and activation loss and expressed by Nyquist plot. The results showed that the cell performance increased with increase of cell temperature, air flow rate, humidified temperature and backpressure. Also, the activation loss decreased as the increase of cell temperature, air flow rate, humidified temperature and backpressure.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.646-652
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• 2022

The dead-end anode (DEA) system is a method that closes the anode outlet and supplies fuel by pressure. The DEA method could improve fuel usage and power efficiency through system simplification. However, flooding occurs due to water and nitrogen back diffusion from the cathode to the anode during the DEA operation. Flooding is a cause of decreased fuel cell performance and electrode degradation. Therefore, tthe structure and components of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) should be optimized to prevent anode flooding during DEA operation. In this study, the effect of a porous flow field with metal foam on fuel cell performance and fuel efficiency improvement was investigated in the DEA system. As a result, fuel cell performance and purge interval were improved by effective water management with a porous flow field at the cathode, and it was confirmed that cathode flow field structure affects water back-diffusion. On the other hand, the effect of the porous flow field at the anode on fuel cell performance was insignificant. Purge interval was affected by metal foam properties and shown stable performance with large cell size metal foam in the DEA system.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.154-157
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• 2009

Fuel cell is spotlighted as next energy source of future. The fuel of vehicle will be changed from fossil fuel such as gasoline, diesel to hydrogen. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) will be used to fuel cell vehicle because of its suitability. PEMFCs need oxygen for cathode. Because PEMFCs in vehicle use air for oxygen, air pollutant will be effect to performance of PEMFC. In this study, we examine a type of filter and pollutant gas how can be effect to performance of fuel cell electric vehicle.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.286-288
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• 2007

The research and development for the solid oxide fuel cell have been promoted rapidly and extensively in recent years, because of their high efficiency and future potential. Therefore this paper describes the manufacturing method and characteristics of anode electrode for solid oxide fuel cell, by the way, Ni-YSZ materials are used as anode of solid oxide fuel cell widely. In order to reduce production costs, we have fabricated single solid oxide fuel cell by doctor blade and screen printing method. Disk-type planar solid oxide fuel cell with an effective electrode area of about $7cm^2$ were fabricated and run for 500 h to investigate cell performance. The current density at a voltage of 0.7 V was $850mA/cm^2$.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.460-465
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• 2003

The modeling of PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell system consisting of fuel cell stack and BOP (Balance of Plant) is presented in this paper. The effects of temperature, pressure (air, hydrogen), and humidity on the fuel cell system performance were mainly investigated using thermo-dynamical and electro-chemical equations. To understand the power distribution characteristics of fuel cell system, the effects of operating temperature and air pressure on maximum power and system power were also demonstrated. Through this study, we can get the basic insight into the fuel cell stack and BOP component sizing and it can be used effectively for the optimization of the practical fuel cell systems in purpose.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.49-56
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• 2023

The Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) operates at ambient temperature as a low-temperature fuel cell. During its operation, voltage losses arise due to factors such as operating conditions and material properties, effecting its performance. Computational simulations of fuel cells can be categorized into 1D simulation and CFD, chosen based on their specific application purposes. In this study, we carried out an analysis validation using 1D geometry and compared its performance with the results from 2D geometry analysis. CFD allows for the representation of pressure, velocity distribution, and fuel mass fraction according to the geometry, enabling the analysis of current density. However, the 1D simulation, simplifying governing equations to reduce time cost, failed to accurately account for fuel distribution and changes in fuel concentration due to fuel cell operations. As a result, it showed unrealistic results in the cell voltage region dominated by concentration loss compared to CFD.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.599-608
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• 2011

The Ni-Al anodes of the molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) with three different structures were successfully fabricated in order to reduce the thickness of the anode down to 0.3 mm; one was the non-supported anode made by a conventional tape casting method, and others were the supported anodes made by lamination or direct casting on the nickel screen. It was seen from the physical analyses and cell operation that the supported thin anodes made by direct casting showed good mechanical strength and cell performance because of a good contact between the anode materials and the support. The single cell using the above anode showed the cell voltage of 0.858 V at the current density of 150$mA/cm^2$ with the nitrogen cross-over of only 0.6% at the operation time of 1,000 h, which was similar to the performance of the conventional thick (0.7 mm) anode. The ability to utilize a thin configuration of anode should cut down the amount of nickel alloy and consequently reduce its manufacturing cost.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.50-60
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• 2013

High temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) using phosphoric acid (PA) doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) membranes have been concentrated as one of solutions to the limits with traditional low temperature PEMFCs. However, the amount of reported experimental data is not enough to catch the operational characteristics correlated with cell performance and durability. In this study, design of experiments (DOE) based operational optimization method for high temperature PEMFCs has been proposed. Response surface method (RSM) is very useful to effectively analyze target system's characteristics and to optimize operating conditions for a short time. Thus RSM using central composite design (CCD) as one of methodologies for design of experiments (DOE) was adopted. For this work, the statistic models which predict the performance and degradation rate with respect to the operating conditions have been developed. The developed performance and degradation models exhibit a good agreement with experimental data. Compared to the existing arbitrary operation, the expected cell lifetime and average cell performance during whole operation could be improved by optimizing operating conditions. Furthermore, the proposed optimization method could find different new optimal solutions for operating conditions if the target lifetime of the fuel cell system is changed. It is expected that the proposed method is very useful to find optimal operating conditions and enhance performance and durability for many other types of fuel cell systems.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.467-473
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• 2008

This study is to investigate the influence of catalyst loading quantity on the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) performance. In this paper, Pt-Ru and Pt-black loading as the catalyst were varied from 1 to $4mg/cm^2$ at the anode and cathode, respectively. The experiment was conducted with single fuel cell consisted of $5cm^2$ effective electrode area, serpentine type flow pattern and Nafion 117 membrane. Also, AC impedance and methanol crossover current were measured to investigate the performance loss precisely. As a result, the performance of fuel cell was significantly increased with the increase of cathode catalyst loading. However, the performance did not increase further above a certain Pt-Ru catalyst loading as the increase of anode catalyst loading.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.131-135
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• 2011

It is, in general, believed that during the activation process, the proton conductivity increases due to wetting effect and the electrochemical resistance reduction, resulting in an increase in the fuel cell performance with time. However, until now, very scant information is available on the understanding of activation processes. In this study, dominant variables that effect on the performance increase of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) during the activation process were investigated. Wetting, pore restructuring and active metal utilization were analyzed systematically. Unexpectedly, the changes for both ohmic and reaction resistance characterized by the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) after initial wetting process were much smaller when considering the degree of cell performance increases. However, the EIS spectra represents that the pore opening of electrode turns into gas transportable structure more easily. The increase in the performance with activation cycles was also investigated in a view of active metals. Though the particle size was grown, the number of effective active sites might be exposed more. The impurity removal and catalytic activity enhancement measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV) could be a strong evident. The results and analysis revealed that, not merely wetting of membrane but also restructuring of electrodeand catalytic activity increase are important factors for the fast and efficient activation of the polymer electrolyte fuel cells.