• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.76.2-76.2
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• 2010

The gas diffusion layer is the key component of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell because it directly affect to the mass transport mechanism and dynamic behavior of the cell. In this study, the effects of GDL aging on the transient response of the PEM fuel cell is systematically investigated using current step transient response analysis under different stoichiometric ratios and humidity conditions. With GDLs aged by the accelerated stress test, the effects of hydrophobicity and structural changes due to carbon loss in the GDL on the transient response of PEM fuel cells are determined. The degraded GDLs that had uneven hydrophobicity distributions cause local water flooding inside the GDL and induce lower and unstable voltage responses after load changes.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.173-178
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• 2011

Gas diffusion layer(GDL) in PEMFC performs the discharge of water vapor smoothly. When GDL is revealed to cold environment, the freezing of the water droplet or water net in GDL occurs. The purpose of this work is to observe the cooling and freezing behavior of the water droplet which meets to the microporous surface and air under the various low temperature conditions. GDL was coated with waterproof material, which has three types of coating rate, 0, 40 and 60%. Water droplets in series of sizes on GDL were supercooled, frozen and crystalized orderly by circulating low temperature brine. The process of cooling was investigated with the temperature and the snapshot of the water droplet.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.306-310
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• 2007

Characteristics of GDL (Gas Diffusion Layer) mainly determine the gas diffusion and water removal in a cell, thereby changing the performance and affecting durability of PEFC. To optimize the water management and understand the two phase flow in a GDL, it is important to study the behaviors of GDL micro structure under the real operating condition. In the clamped condition of cell, the GDL beneath the rib is more compressed than beneath the channel. Many researches on physical, electrochemical, mechanical behaviors of gas diffusion layer has been conducted. However, changes in surface properties under clamped condition have rarely studied. In present study, the morphology of broken connections of carbon fibers and detachment of PTFE coatings on the fibers were shown from the microscopic observations. In addition, changes in wetting properties of GDL by compression were investigated by using XPS and liquid uptake methods. The hydrophobic characteristics of GDL surface beneath the rib of the flow field plate are changed due to the deformation of micro structure.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.568-574
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• 2020

Gas diffusion layer (GDL) is one of the main components of PEMFC as a pathway of reactants from a flow field to an electrode, water transport in reverse direction, heat management and structural support of MEA. In this study, the effect of GDL on fuel cell performance was investigated for commercial products such as 39BC and JNT30-A3. Polarization curve measurements were performed at different flow rates and relative humidity conditions using 25 ㎠ unit cell. The parameters on operating conditions were calculated using an empirical equation. The electrical resistance increased as the GDL PTFE content increased. The crack of microporous layer had influence on the concentration loss as water pathway. In addition, the ohmic resistance increased as the relative humidity decreased, but decreased as the current density increased due to water formation. Curve fitting analysis using the empirical equation model was applied to identify the tendency of performance parameters on operating conditions for the gas diffusion layer.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.77.1-77.1
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• 2010

Durability problems of gas diffusion layer(GDL) is one of the important issues for accomplishing commercialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC). GDL is strongly related to the performance of PEMFC because one of the main function of GDL is to work as a path of fuel, air and water. When the GDL is degraded, it causes water balance problems such as the flooding phenomenon. Thus, investigating the durability characteristics of the GDL is important and understanding the GDL degradation process is needed. In this study, the GDLs are degraded by carbon corrosion stress method which is the electrochemical degradation mode. To determine the effects of carbon corrosion of the GDL, 1.45 V of potential is imposed for 96 hours. In this manner, in the previous research, the structure between the substrate and the MPL is weaken. Further investigations are needed to clarify this phenomenon. Therefore, in this study, the carbon corrosion stress method is carried out with GDLs which have various MPL penetration levels and the effects of the MPL penetration level on the characteristics change of the GDL are analyzed. The changes in characteristics are measured with various properties of GDL such as weight, thickness and static contact angle. The degraded GDL shows loss of their properties.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.1022-1030
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• 2009

Numerical analysis was carried out to investigate the effect of GDL (Gas diffusion layer) porosity on the performance of PEMFC (proton exchange membrane fuel cell). A complete three-dimensional model was chosen for single straight channel geometry including cooling channel. Main emphasis is placed on the heat and mass transfer through the GDL with different porosity. The present numerical results show that at high current densities, the cell voltage is influenced by the GDL porosity while the cell performance is nearly the same at low current densities. At high current densities, low value of GDL porosity results in decrease of the fuel cell performance since the diffusion of reactant gas through GDL becomes slow with decreasing porosity. On the other hand, for high GDL porosity, the effective thermal conductivity becomes low and the heat generated in the cell is not removed rapidly. This causes the temperature of fuel cell to increase and gives rise to dehydration of the membrane, and ultimately increase of the ohmic loss.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.320-325
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• 2013

TUnitized reversible fuel cells (URFC) combine the functionality of a fuel cell and electrolyzer in one unitized device. For a URFC with proton exchange membrane, a titanium (Ti)-felt is applied to the gas diffusion layer (GDL) substrate at the oxygen electrode, and additionally titanium (Ti)-powders and TiN-powders are loaded in the GDL substrate as a micro porous layer (MPL). Double porous layer with TiN MPL was not acceptable for the URFC because both of fuel cell performance and electrolysis performance are degraded. The double porous layer with Ti-powder loading in the Ti-felt substrate influence rearly for the electrolysis performance. In contrast, the change of pore-size distribution brings a significant improvement of fuel cell performance under fully humidification conditions. This fact indicates that the hydrophobic meso-pores in the GDL play an important role for mass transport.

• Composites Research
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.406-411
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• 2021

PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cells generate only water as a by-product, and thus are in the spotlight as an eco-friendly energy source. Among the various components composing the stack of the fuel cell, research on the bipolar plate that determines the efficiency of the fuel cell is being actively conducted. The composite bipolar plate has high strength, rigidity and corrosion resistance, but has the disadvantage of having a relatively low electrical conductivity. In this study, to overcome these shortcomings, a gas diffusion layer (GDL)-composite bipolar plate assembly was developed and its performance was experimentally verified. The graphite foil coating method developed in the previous study was applied to reduce the contact resistance between the bipolar plate and the GDL. In addition, in order to improve electron path in the stack and minimize the contact resistance between the GDL and the bipolar plate, a GDL-bipolar plate assembly was fabricated using a thin metal foil. As a result of the experiment, it was confirmed that the developed GDL-bipolar plate assembly had 98% lower electrical resistance compared to the conventional composite bipolar plate.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.422-431
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• 2007

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) is very interesting power source due to high power density, simple construction and operation at low temperature. But it has problems such as high cost, improvement of performance and effect of temperature. These problems can be approached to be solved by using mathematical models which are useful tools for analysis and optimization of fuel cell performance and for heat and water management. In this paper, the present work is to develop an electrochemical model to examine the electrochemical process inside PEM fuel cell. A complete set of considerations of mass, momentum, species and charge is developed and solved numerically with proper account of electrochemical kinetics. When depth of gas channel becomes thinner, diffusion of reactant makes well into gas diffusion layer(GDL) and the performance increases. Although at low current region there is little voltage difference between experimental data of PEM fuel cell and numerical data. When the porosity size of gas diffusion layer for PEM fuel cell is bigger, oxygen diffusion occurs well and oxygen mass fraction appears high in catalyst layer.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.288-297
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• 2009

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from the intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with high aspect ratio of active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compressive forces. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.