• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.147-151
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• 2007

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a polymer electrolyte membrane 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 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 relatively high aspect ratio active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compression conditions. 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 to that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.293-299
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• 2012

The serpentine flow channel is widely used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to prevent flooding phenomena because it effectively removes liquid water in the flow channel. The pressure drop between inlet and outlet increases as compared with straight channels due to minor losses associated with the corners of the turning configurations. This results in a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions, where some amount of reactant gas can be delivered to catalyst layers by convection through a gas diffusion layer (GDL). The enhancement of the convective flow in the GDL, so-called bypass flow, affects fuel cell performance since the bypass flow influences the reactant transport and thus its concentration over the active area. In the present paper, for the bipolar plate design, a simple analytic model has been proposed to predict the bypass flow in the serpentine type flow channels and validated with three-dimensional numerical simulation results.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.273-283
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• 2008

GDL(Gas Diffusion Layer) is one of the main components of PEM fuel cell. It transports reactants from the channel to the catalyst and removes reaction products from the catalyst to the channels in the flow filed plate. It is known that higher permeability of GDL can make it possible to enhance the gas transport through GDL, leading to better performance. And MEA's temperature is determined by gas and heat transport. In this paper, three dimensional numerical simulation of PEM fuel cell of parallel channel and serpentine channel by the permeability of GDL is presented to analysis heat and mass transfer characteristics using a FLUENT modified to include the electrochemical behavior. Results show that in the case of parallel channel, performance variation with change of permeability of GDL was not so much. This is thought because mass transfer is carried out by diffusion mechanism in parallel channel. Also, in the case of serpentine channel, higher GDL permeability resulted in better performance of PEM fuel cell because of convection flow though GDL. And mass transfer process is changed from convection to diffusion when the permeability becomes low.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.129-136
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• 2010

The corrosion behaviors of 316L stainless steel were investigated in simulated anodic and cathodic environments for proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) by using electrochemical measurement techniques. Interfacial contact resistance(ICR) between the stainless steel and gas diffusion layer(GDL) was also measured. The possibility of 316L was evaluated as a substitute material for the graphite bipolar plate of PEMFC. The value of ICR decreased with an increase in compaction stress(20 N/$cm^2$~220 N/$cm^2$) showing the higher values than the required value in PEMFC condition. Although 316L was spontaneously passivated in simulated cathodic environment, its passive state was unstable in simulated anodic environment. Potentiostatic and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurement results showed that the corrosion resistance in cathodic condition was higher and more stable than that in anodic condition. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), and inductively coupled plasma(ICP) were used to analyze the surface morphology and the metal ion concentration in electrolytes.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.64-69
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• 2013

The structure of pore network of gas diffusion layers (GDLs) in PEMFCs plays a critical role in determining the transport phenomena of reaction gas as well as generated water. In addition, the interactive characteristics between water and surface of pore are no less important than the structural characteristics of pore network. In this study, porometric investigation is conducted for two kinds of GDL using method of standard porosimetry which enable to distinguish hydrophobic pores from hydrophilic pores of GDLs. The porosity of TGPH-120 decreases by 6% by adding 30 wt.% of PTFE, but the porosity of hydrophilic pores decreases by 12%. The relation of $p_c-S_{nw}$ varies with the addition of PTFE, especially at low $p_c$.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.403-406
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• 2006

본 연구에서는 양극의 two-phase simulation 모델을 확립하고 GDL 물성과 작동조건이 전지성능에 미치는 영향에 대해 시행하였다. 모델로는 Multi-phase $mixture(M^2)$ 모델을 사용하였는데 이 모델은 각 상의 balance식을 하나의 mixture-phase식으로 통합하여 수학적 계산이 용이할 뿐만 아니라 실제 전지 성능에 매우 근사하여 신뢰성성도 확보할 수 있었다. 최적의 GDL 구조와 작동조건을 규명하기 위해 기체투과도, 접촉각, 기공도, 기체 공급가스 차이에 따른 전지 성능 분석을 시행하였는데 그 결과 모든 파라미터들이 증가할수록 비례적으로 전지 성능이 증가하였다. 기체 공급가스>기공도>>접촉각>기체투과도 순으로 전지에 미치는 영향이 큰 것으로 나타났다.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.499-504
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• 2009

The effect of gas diffusion layer (GDL) compression caused by different stack clamping pressures on fuel cell performance was experimentally studied in a miniature 5-cell proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack. Three stacks with different GDL compressions, 15%, 35% and 50%, were prepared using SGL 10BC carbon fiber felt GDL and Gore 57 series MEA. The PEMFC stack performance and the stack stability were enhanced with increasing stack clamping pressure resulting in the best performance and stability for the stack with higher GDL compressions up to 50%. The excellent performance of the stack with high GDL compression was mainly due to the reduced contact resistance between GDL and bipolar plate in the stack, while reduced gas permeability of the excessively compressed GDL in the stack hardly affected the stack performance. The high stack clamping pressure also resulted in excessive GDL compression under the rib areas of bipolar plate and large GDL intrusion into the channels of the plate, which reduced the by-pass flow in the channels and increase gas pressure drop in the stack. It seems that these phenomena in the highly compressed stack enhance the water management in the stack and lead to the high stack stability.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.32-39
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• 2024

The key components of a Phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) are an electrode catalyst, an electrolyte matrix and a gas diffusion layer (GDL). In this study, we introduced a microporous layer on the GDL of PAFC to enhance liquid electrolyte management and overall electrochemical performance of PAFC. MPL is primarily used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells to serve as an intermediate buffer layer, effectively managing water within the electrode and reducing contact resistance. In this study, electrodes were fabricated using GDLs with and without MPL to examine the influence of MPL on the performance of PAFC. Internal resistance and polarization curves of the unit cell were measured and compared to each other to assess the impact of MPL on PAFC electrode performance. As the results, the application of MPL improved power density from 170.2 to 192.1 mW/cm². MPL effectively managed electrolyte and water within the matrix and electrode, enhancing stability. Furthermore, the application of MPL reduced internal resistance in the electrode, resulting in sustained and stable performance even during long-term operation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.979-988
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• 2012

The 3D structure of GDL for fuel cells was measured using high-resolution X-ray tomography in order to study material transport in the GDL. A computational algorithm has been developed to remove noise in the 3D image and construct 3D elements representing carbon fibers of GDL, which were used for both structural and fluid analyses. Changes in the pore structure of GDL under various compression levels were calculated, and the corresponding volume meshes were generated to evaluate the anisotropic permeability of gas within GDL as a function of compression. Furthermore, the transfer of liquid water and reactant gases was simulated by using the volume of fluid (VOF) and pore-network model (PNM) techniques. In addition, the simulation results of liquid water transport in GDL were validated by analogous experiments to visualize the diffusion of fluid in porous media. Through this research, a procedure for simulating the material transport in deformed GDL has been developed; this will help in optimizing the clamping force of fuel cell stacks as well as in determining the design parameters of GDL, such as thickness and porosity.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.3114-3119
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• 2008

Relatively high convective flow exists in the under-rib regions of a gas diffusion layer (GDL) when serpentine flow fields are employed in a PEMFC. This under-rib convection is believed to be favorable for the performance of PEMFCs, by enabling more effective use of catalysts in the under-rib regions. From the fact that the under-rib convection in a GDL is directly proportional to the permeability of the GDL, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to discover the relationship between the GDL permeability and the PEMFC performance. Single-, triple-, and quintuple-path parallel serpentine flow fields for $9\;cm^2$ active cell area were considered while changing the GDL permeability from $1{\times}10^{-12}$ to $5{\times}10^{-11}m^2$. The results showed that higher GDL permeability generally resulted in better performance of PEMFCs, but the degree of performance enhancement became smaller as the parallel path number increased. The effects of the permeability on the local variables were also discussed.