• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.345-348
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• 2009

Maintaining proper membrane humidity is crucial to ensure optimal operation of a PEMFC system. A gas-to-gas membrane humidifier is popular technology for external humidification of PEMFC reactant gases. Characteristics of heat and water transfer in shell-and-tube Nafion membrane humidifiers has been experimentally investigated for various dry side inlet temperature of membrane humidifier. The results show that heat flux decreases linearly with dry side inlet temperature of membrane humidifier. The water flux through the membrane varies nonlinearly with the temperature elevation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.151-159
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• 2006

A one-dimensional numerical analysis is carried out to investigate the effects of inlet gas humidities, inlet gas pressures, and thicknesses of membrane on the performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell. It is found that the relative humidity of inlet gases at anode and cathode sides has a significant effect on the fuel cell performance. Especially, the desirable fuel cell performance occurs at low relative humidity of the cathode side and at high humidity of the anode side. In addition, an increase in the pressure ranging from 1 atm to 4 atm at the cathode side results in a significant improvement in the fuel cell performance due to the convection effect by a pressure gradient toward the anode side, and with decreasing the thickness of membrane, the fuel cell performance is enhanced reasonably.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2828-2833
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• 2008

Water management is one of many operating parameters, which influences the performance and stability of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Local humidity condition including liquid water saturation has profound impacts on the distributions of overpotentials, current density, and membrane water content. Computational fluid dynamics simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of the inlet humidity variation on the performance of a PEMFC of $9\;cm^2$ active cell area with serpentine flow fields. The results showed that the performance of the simulated PEMFC remained at an almost same level when the cathode inlet humidity was changed from 100% to 60%, while reaching its maximum at air humidity of 80%. However, further decrease in the cathode inlet humidity below 40% started to significantly deteriorate the performance of the PEMFC. The variations of overpotentials, membrane water content, etc. due to the change in the cathode inlet humidity were also discussed.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3423-3428
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• 2007

This paper shows that inlet humidity condition at cathode side is one of dominant parameters affecting the performance of PEMFC. To investigate effects of inlet humidity condition, the performance measurements were conducted for a single PEMFC with two operating variables : cathode relative humidity and dry condition in anode dry. The fuel cell employed for the experiments is a unit PEMFC with a 25$Cm^2$, Nafion$^(R)$112 membrane. As a result of this study, the cell performance is getting higher by increasing inlet humidity condition at cathode side. The cell performance is different from each operating temperature an it has maximum30% higher than dry condition at 60$^{\circ}C$ operating temperature with 80% relative humidity.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.369-380
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• 2012

A one-dimensional numerical model based on the energy and mass equations have been developed to predict the trans membrane water vapor flux and thermal efficiency under various operating conditions in Direct Contact Membrane Distillation (DCMD) process. The model validation have been carried out by experimental data from literature and showed good agreement. The effect of operating parameters such as brine inlet temperature and velocity, and distillate inlet temperature and velocity to increase water vapor flux and thermal efficiency were predicted by the steady-state model. The results showed that the inlet temperature and velocity in brine side are dominant factors to control the water vapor flux and thermal efficiency because the effect of inlet temperature and velocity in brine side showed the higher water vapor flux and thermal efficiency than that of inlet temperature and velocity in distillate side. The water vapor flux was increased 3.4 times in the range of 21.22 $kg/m^2h$ to 71.26 $kg/m^2h$ and the thermal efficiency was increased 37.5% in that of 0.556 to 0.765 with increasing brine inlet temperature from $60^{\circ}C$ to $95^{\circ}C$. Meanwhile, the water vapor flux was increased 30% in that of 27.91 $kg/m^2h$ to 36.33 $kg/m^2h$ and thermal efficiency increased 7.5% in that of 0.6 to 0.646 as the brine inlet velocity was increased from 60 m/h to 300 m/h.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.2791-2796
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• 2010

In the present study, we constructed a membrane inlet assembly for selective permeation of volatile airborne organic compounds for subsequent analysis by time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The time-dependent diffusion of analytes through a $75\;{\mu}m$ thick polydimethylsiloxane membrane was measured by monitoring the ion signal after a step change in the sample concentration. The results fit well to a non-steady-state permeation equation. The diffusion coefficient, response time, and sensitivity were determined experimentally for a range of polar (halogenated) and nonpolar (aromatic) compounds. We found that the response times for several volatile organic compounds were greatly influenced by the alkyl chain length as well as the size of the substituted halogen atoms. The detection limits for benzene, ethylbenzene, and 2-propanol were 0.2 ppm, 0.1 ppm, and 3.0 ppm by volume, respectively, with a linear dynamic range greater than three orders of magnitude. These results indicate that the membrane inlet/time-of-flight mass spectrometry technique will be useful for a wide range of applications, particularly for in situ environmental monitoring.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.573-576
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• 2009

We present a passive flow-rate regulator, capable to compensate inlet pressure variation and to maintain a constant flow-rate for precise liquid control. Deflection of the parallel membrane valves in the passive flowrate regulator adjusts fluidic resistance according to inlet fluid pressure without any external energy. Compared to previous passive flow-rate regulators, the present device achieves precision flow regulation functions at the lower threshold compensation pressure of 20kPa with the simpler structure. In the experimental study, the fabricated device achieves the constant flow-rate of $6.09{\pm}0.32{\mu}l/s$ over the inlet pressure range of $20{\sim}50$ kPa. The present flow-rate regulator having simple structure and lower compensation pressure level demonstrates potentials for use in integrated micropump systems.

• Journal of Drive and Control
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.66-71
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• 2019

In this study, flow analysis and dehumidification experiments were performed on hollow fiber membrane module to confirm the dehumidification characteristics for its different configurations. The CFD for the three different models was conducted using $30^{\circ}C$ temperature and 30%RH inlet humidity for quantitative analysis. Each model has different shape parameters i.e. the number of baffles. Comparison between flow analysis results and dehumidification experiment results revealed a percentage error of about 5%. The difference in relative humidity between the inlet and outlet for each model was calculated using flow analysis data. It was established that the difference in relative humidity of the inlet and outlet for the refined model with three baffles was highest among the three modeled modules of hollow fiber membrane module, i.e. around 9%.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.78.2-78.2
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• 2010

Effect of temperature elevation of inlet air on performance of a membrane humidifier for PEMFC vehicle application was investigated both experimentally and numerically. A shell-and-tube typed gas-to-gas humidifier with Nafion membrane was tested. The experimental result showed that water transfer varies nonlinearly with the temperature elevation. Numerical analysis based on detailed modeling is also conducted on a single tube geometry to explain this nonlinear behavior. The simulation revealed that the local water flux varies nolineary and dramatically along the tube. Analysis is based on competing role of temperature increase and relative humidity decrease, both of which seriously affect water conductivity of the membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.1183-1191
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• 2000

Operating conditions for reduction of membrane fouling in treatment of dissolved organic matter by UF membrane process were investigated by pilot-scale plant using various operating conditions. As inlet pressure increased, increament of transmembrane pressure and flux decline were faster. The reason was due to the increase in adsorption of dissolved organic matter and the development of cake layer compression on the membrane surface. When efficient pressure (the difference of pressure between backwash and transmembrane pressures) was high, small amount of pollutant was retained on the membrane surface. When backwash was frequently conducted, low concentration of pollutant was maintained in recycling water. Therefore, backwash could be efficiently conducted with high efficient pressure and high frequency. Fouling rate was correlated with backwash and inlet pressures, recovery rate and cumulative permeated volume. Among the operating parameters backwash pressure was most closely related to fouling rate and inlet pressure was next to backwash pressure. It seems that the fouling was strongly related to pressure which leads to the cake layer compression and adsorption of dissolved organic matter.