• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.343-350
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• 2012

A planar solid oxide fuel cell (PSOFC) is studied in its application in a high-temperature stationary power plant. Even though PSOFCs with external reformers are designed for application from the distributed power source to the central power plant, such PSOFCs may sacrifice more system efficiency than internally reformed SOFCs. In this study, modeling of the PSOFC with an external reformer was developed to analyze the feasibility of thermal energy utilization for the external reformer. The PSOFC system model includes the stack, reformer, burner, heat exchanger, blower, pump, PID controller, 3-way valve, reactor, mixer, and steam separator. The model was developed under the Matlab/Simulink environment with Thermolib$^{(R)}$ modules. The model was used to study the system performance according to its configuration. Three configurations of the SOFC system were selected for the comparison of the system performance. The system configuration considered the cathode recirculation, thermal sources for the external reformer, heat-up of operating gases, and condensate anode off-gas for the enhancement of the fuel concentration. The simulation results show that the magnitude of the electric efficiency of the PSOFC system for Case 2 is 12.13% higher than that for Case 1 (reference case), and the thermal efficiency of the PSOFC system for Case 3 is 76.12%, which is the highest of all the cases investigated.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.348-355
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• 2008

Recently, an understanding of new sources of liquid hydrocarbons such as bio-ethanol is economically very important. The present dissertation is also designed with purpose of developing the energy-saving process for the separation of bio-ethanol. In order to illustrate the predictability of proposed process for the separation of bio-ethanol, the experimental data from literatures and real plant data are used. Application of the thermodynamics of multicomponent mixtures and phase equilibria to the extractive distillation process with syntheses of heat exchanger network has enabled the development of energy-saving process for different separating agents. Developed process is capable of minimizing the energy usage and the environmental effect. This extractive process is also able to properly describe the effect of impurities, the choice of separating agent. Simulation results of extractive distillation using ethylene glycol show that impurities do not affect to extractive distillation operation and agent, ethylene glycol, was recycled without any loss. It is possible that extraction distillation has various heat network for anhydride ethanol and recovery of ethanol is maximized. Ethylene glycol as separating agent has a high boiling point to eliminate azeotropic point and on the contrary solubility of agent is low to be almost completed recovered. Proposed process is also the energy efficient process configuration in which 99.85mole% anhydride ethanol can be produced with low energy of 1.37198 (kg steam/kg anhydride ethanol).

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.285-292
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• 2020

Because the inner environment of greenhouse has a direct impact on crop production, many studies have been performed to develop technologies for controlling the environment in the greenhouse. However, it is difficult to apply the technology developed to all greenhouses because those studies were conducted through empirical experiments in specific greenhouses. It takes a lot of time and cost to develop the models that can be applicable to all greenhouse in real situation. Therefore studies are underway to solve this problem using computer-based simulation techniques. In this study, a model was developed to predict the inner environment of glass greenhouse using CFD simulation method. The developed model was validated using primary and secondary heating experiment and daytime greenhouse inner temperature data. As a result of comparing the measured and predicted value, the mean temperature and uniformity were 2.62℃ and 2.92%p higher in the predicted value, respectively. R² was 0.9628, confirming that the measured and the predicted values showed similar tendency. In the future, the model needs to improve by applying the shape of the greenhouse and the position of the inner heat exchanger for efficient thermal energy management of the greenhouse.