• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.325-343
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• 2023

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) have been attracting attention as energy conversion devices that can directly supply methanol liquid fuel without a fuel reforming process. The commercial polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) currently applied to DMFC are perfluorosulfonic acid ionomer-based PEMs, which exhibit high proton conductivity and physicochemical stability during the operation. However, problems such as high methanol permeability and environmental pollutants generated during decomposition require the development of PEMs for DMFCs using novel ionomers. Recently, studies have been reported to develop PEMs using hydrocarbon-based ionomers that exhibit low fuel permeability and high physicochemical stability. This review introduces the following studies on hydrocarbon-based PEMs for DMFC applications: 1) synthesis of grafting copolymers that exhibit distinct hydrophilic/hydrophobic phase-separated structure to improve both proton conductivity and methanol selectivity, 2) introduction of cross-linked structure during PEM fabrication to reduce the methanol permeability and improve dimensional stability, and 3) incorporation of organic/inorganic composites or reinforcing substrates to develop reinforced composite membranes showing improved PEM performances and durability.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.68-71
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• 2003

The performance of the Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) using multi-layer electrode, which prepared by various anode catalysts and Nafion membranes, was studied for reducing the amount of the metal catalyst loaded in the MEA system. The amount of the catalyst used in this experiment was $3-4 mg/cm^2$ in cathode and $1-2 mg/cm^2$ in anode, respectively. The best performance was to be $230 mS/cm^2$ of MEA3 at $90^{\circ}C$ and 2 bar in this experiment. However, the overall performance of the DMFC was maintained almost the same compared to the general commercial catalyst systems.

• Clean Technology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.329-335
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• 2020

Methanol synthesized from renewable hydrogen and captured CO2 has recently attracted great interest as a sustainable energy carrier for large-scale renewable energy storage. In this study, molten carbonate fuel cell's performance was investigated with the direct conversion of methanol into syngas inside the anode chamber of the cell. The internal reforming of methanol may significantly improve system efficiency since the heat generated from the electrochemical reaction can be used directly for the endothermic reforming reaction. The porous Ni-10 wt%Cr anode was sufficient for the methanol steam reforming reaction under the fuel cell operating condition. The direct supply of methanol into the anode chamber resulted in somewhat lower cell performance, especially at high current density. Recycling of the product gas into the anode gas inlet significantly improved the cell performance. The analysis based on material balance revealed that, with increasing current density and gas recycling ratio, the methanol steam reforming reaction rate likewise increased. A methanol conversion more significant than 90% was achieved with gas recycling. The results showed the feasibility of electricity and syngas co-production using the molten carbonate fuel cell. Further research is needed to optimize the fuel cell operating conditions for simultaneous production of electricity and syngas, considering both material and energy balances in the fuel cell.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.184-189
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• 2003

A study of the property of Indolene-Methanol Plus High Alcolhols (MPHA) has been completed. The study invested the measurement of fuel properties. The fuel properties investigated are distillation characteristics, heating value, flash point, specific gravity and water tolerance. The alcohol concentration was varied from 0 to 100 percent by volume in clear Indolene. The measurement of fuel properties indicated that, in general, Indolene-MPHA blends have higher water tolerance, similar specific gravity, similar flash point and different distillation characteristics compared to Indolene-Methanol blends.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.12 s.255
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• pp.1196-1202
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• 2006

A MEMS methanol reformer was fabricated and its performance was evaluated in the present study. Catalytic steam reforming of methanol was selected because the process had been widely applied in macro scale reformers. Conventional Cu/ZnO catalyst that was prepared by co-precipitation method to give the highest coating quality was used. The reactor structure was made by bonding three layers of glass wafers. The internal structure of the wafer was fabricated by the wet-etching process that resulted in a high aspect ratio. The internal surface of the reactor was coated by catalyst and individual wafers were fusion-bonded to form the reactor structure. The internal volume of the microfabricated reactor was $0.3cm^3$ and the reactor produced exhaust gas with hydrogen concentration at 73%. The production rate of hydrogen was 4.16 ml/hr that could generate power of 350 mW in a typical PEM fuel cell.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.219-233
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• 2009

Mobile devices in the next generation such as camera, cell phone, network, Note PC, etc. require higher power and energy sources due to convergences of various functions. Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) has been focused as an attractive power source, but there are critical issues involved in its commercialization with regard to the core technologies of materials, components, and system. The requirements of key technologies are differentiated from applications and fuel supply methods. Here, the roles of the proton-conducting membrane are discussed and the current status of DMFC systems is discussed in terms of proton conductivity, methanol permeability, and water management. Materials such as perfluorinated and partially fluorinated membranes, hydrocarbon membranes, composite membranes, and other modified ionomers have been studied. These would explain the critical issues of DMFC and the role of membranes for commercialization.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.109-114
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• 2014

The main purpose of this study is to provide basic information of droplet burning, extinction process and flame behavior of methanol fuel and improve the ability of theoretical prediction of these phenomena. For the improved understanding of these phenomena, this paper presents the experimental results on the methanol droplet combustion conducted under various initial droplet diameters ($d_0$), ambient pressure ($P_{amb}$), and oxygen concentration ($O_2$) conditions. To achieve this, the experimental study was conducted in terms of burning rate (K) with normalized droplet diameter ($d/d_0$), flame diameter ($d_f$) and flame standoff ratio (FSR) under the assumptions that the droplet combustion can be described by both the quasi-steady behavior for the region between the droplet surface and the flame interface and the transient behavior for the region between the flame interface and ambient surrounding.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.643-647
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• 2003

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) employing proton exchange polymer electrolyte have recently gained considerable interest because of their attractiveness as the power source for electronic devices or vehicular applications. However, it suffers from the fuel crossover and its impact on cathode operation and the consequent penalty in system energy efficiency. Efforts to circumvent the methanol crossover in DMFC have been made basically along three different strategies.(Omitted)

• Carbon letters
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.121-125
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• 2013

In this study, PtRu nanoparticles deposited on binary carbon supports were developed for use in direct methanol fuel cells using carbon blacks (CBs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). The particle sizes and morphological structures of the catalysts were analyzed using X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy, and the PtRu loading content was determined using an inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometer. The electrocatalytic characteristics for methanol oxidation were evaluated by means of cyclic voltammetry with 1 M $CH_3OH$ in a 0.5 M $H_2SO_4$ solution as the electrolyte. The PtRu particle sizes and the loading level were found to be dependent on the mixing ratio of the two carbon materials. The electroactivity of the catalysts increased with an increasing MWCNT content, reaching a maximum at 30% MWCNTs, and subsequently decreased. This was attributed to the introduction of MWCNTs as a secondary support, which provided a highly accessible surface area and caused morphological changes in the carbon supports. Consequently, the PtRu nanoparticles deposited on the binary support exhibited better performance than those deposited on the single support, and the best performance was obtained when the mass ratio of CBs to MWCNTs was 70:30.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.18-24
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• 2003

In order to improve the mechanical properties of the sulfonated polysulfone (SPSf) membranes previously synthesized in our laboratory, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) was blended which is well known as the excellent physical and chemical properties. The resulting membranes blended with several molecular weight of PVA varying from 13,000 to 124,000 have been characterized to investigate the effect of PVA molecular weight in terms of ion conductivities, methanol permeabilities, water contents and ion exchange capacities for both heat treated and untreated membranes at 150$^{\circ}C$. The proton conductivity is decreased as the molecular weight of PVA increases. The plain SPSf-6.0 showed the proton conductivity of 0.078 S/cm whereas the blended membrane with M.W. 31,000 PVA indicated 0.04 S/cm. For methanol permeabilities, when PVA is added to SPAf-6.0, methanol crossover is increased because of the gain of the hydrophilicity from 3.4 to 6.5${\times}$10$\^$-6/ $\textrm{cm}^2$/s. For the annealed blended membranes (with M.W. 31,000 PVA), both the methanol corssover and proton conductivity showed very consistent values, about 2.3${\times}$10$\^$-6/ $\textrm{cm}^2$/s and 0.036 S/cm, respectively.