• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.102-111
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• 2010

Molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) power plants are one of most attractive electricity generation systems for the use of biogas to generate high-efficiency ultra-clean power. However, MCFCs are considerably more expensive than comparable conventional electricity generation systems. The commercialization of MCFCs has been delayed more than expected. After being effective in the Kyoto protocol and considerably increasing the fossil price, the attention focused on $CO_2$ regression and renewable energy sources has increased dramatically. In particular, the commercialization and application of MCFC systems fed with biogas have been revived because of the characteristics of $CO_2$ collection and fuel variety of MCFCs. Better economic results of MCFC systems fed with biogas are expected because biogas is a relatively inexpensive fuel compared to liquefied natural gas (LNG). However, the pretreatment cost is added when using anaerobic digester gas (ADG), one of the biogases, as a fuel of MCFC systems because it contains high $H_2S$ and other contaminants, which are harmful sources to the MCFC stack in ADG. Thus, an accurate economic analysis and comparison between MCFCs fed with biogas and LNG are very necessary before the installation of an MCFC system fed with biogas in a plant. In this paper, the economic analysis of an MCFC fed with ADG was carried out for various conditions of electricity and fuel price and compared with the case of an MCFC fed with LNG.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.1305-1311
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• 2014

The nickel oxide, the most widely used cathode material for the molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC), has several disadvantages including NiO dissolution, poor mechanical strength, and corrosion phenomena during MCFC operation. The surface modification of NiO with lanthanum maintains the advantages, such as performance and stability, and suppresses the disadvantages of NiO cathode because the modification results in the formation of $LaNiO_3$ phase which has high conductivity, stability, and catalytic activity. As a result, La-modified NiO cathode shows low NiO dissolution, high degree of lithiation, and mechanical strength, and high cell performance and catalytic activity in comparison with the pristine NiO. These enhanced physico-chemical and electrochemical properties and the durability in marine environment allow MCFC to marine application as a auxiliary propulsion system.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.139-147
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• 2018

Korea Electric Power Research Institute (KEPCO RI) had developed molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) system since 1993. Finally, KEPCO RI developed and operated a 125 kW MCFC system in 2010. To make MCFC system compact, it is indispensable to install an ejector in this system where the anode off gas, the cathode off gas, and fresh air are mixed before flowing to the catalytic burner. KEPCO RI had developed various ejectors for MCFC system since 2006. The 125 kW MCFC system built with the developed ejector was operated successfully in Boryeong Thermal Power Plant in 2010. This 125 kW MCFC ejector was designed on the basis of the experimental results of 5 kW and 75 kW MCFC ejectors. The main goal of ejector design in our MCFC system is to maintain the entrainment ratio and the pressure between fuel cell stack and catalytic burner within the operating range. In this paper, the design results of the ejector are presented based on the 125 kW MCFC system operating conditions. In addition, a designed ejector was manufactured and installed in the MCFC system. As the fuel cell is under load operation, the pressure surrounding the ejector was measured to ensure that the fuel cell system is operating smoothly.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.363-371
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• 2022

In this study, the operation characteristics of the internal reforming type molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) were studied using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis according to the steam to carbon ratio (S/C ratio), operating temperature, and gas utilization. From the simulation results, the distribution of gas composition due to the electrochemical reaction and the reforming reaction was predicted. The internal reforming type showed a lower temperature difference than the external reforming type MCFC. As the operating temperature decreased, less hydrogen was produced and the performance of the fuel cell also decreased. As the gas utilization rate decreased, more gas was injected into the same reaction area, and thus the performance of the fuel cell increased.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Technology of Plasticity Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.345-348
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• 2008

Metallic bipolar plate for molten carbonate fuel cell(MCFC) is composed of the shielded slot plate and the center plate. Among these, the center plate plays an important role in gas sealing. Therefore, manufacturing of the center plate is considered one of the key issues in MCFC. The center plate is manufactured by bending process. In bending process, springback and recoiling are two main problems. The aim of this article is to optimize the bending process of the center plate regardless of springback and recoiling. To achieve this goal, we proposed the punch having step to reduce springback and recoiling. Using finite element method and $L_9$ orthogonal array, we determined the main factors in the center plate bending process. And we found the optimal bending process condition for the MCFC center plate.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2000.07b
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• pp.687-689
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• 2000

Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) with high electrical efficiency and low environmental effect has been developed for the commercial application of power generation fields. Recently we have built a 25 kW molten carbonate fuel cell power generation system and tested it. The MCFC system is composed of diverse peripheral units such as reformer, pre-heater, water purifier. electrical loader, gas supplier, and recycling systems. The stack itself was made of 40 cells of $6.000 cm^2$ area each. The stack showed an output of 28.6 kW power and a reliable performance at atmospheric operation. while in pressurized operation the stack showed an output 25.6 kW lower than the atmospheric operation. The reason of lower performance of pressurized operation was caused from a gas cross over shown in few cells in the stack.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.535-546
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• 1992

The molten carbonate fuel cell(MCFC) has been under Intensive development for the last decade as a second generation fuel cell. The advantages of the MCFC over the phophoric acid fuel cell are higher efficiency, its ability to accept CO and $H_2$ as a fuel, lower material costs, and high operating temperature making internal reforming possible. These features, along with low atmospheric emissions, will open up a significant market as an attractive means of developing highly efficient power plant. This article reviews a status of the MCFC research and development, a principle of the MCFC, and cell and stack technology including the status of electrodes, matrices and electrolytes. Several technical difficulties which must be resolved to be commercialized art mainly focused.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.156-163
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• 2015

The fuel cells have been investigated in the applications of marine as the high efficient and eco-friendly power generating systems. In this study, modeling of IR Type molten carbonate fuel cell (Internal Reforming Type molten carbonate fuel cell) has been developed to analyze the feasibility of thermal energy utilization. The model is developed under Aspen plus and used for the study of system performances over regarding fuel types. The simulation results show that the efficiency of MCFC system based on NG fuel is the highest. Also, it is also verified that the steam reforming is suitable as pre-reforming for diesel fuel.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.11-18
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• 2008

In-situ lithiated NiO has been manufactured as a conventional cathode material of molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC), however this material has a weakness for commercialization of MCFC because NiO is spontaneously dissolved into the electrolyte under MCFC operating conditions, resulting in short circuit between cathode and anode. In this research, therefore, $Co(OH)_2$-coated Ni powder was prepared by precipitation method with controlling pH at low temperature and atmospheric pressure. Modified cathode was fabricated by a conventional tape casting method and sintered at 700$^{\circ}C$ in a $H_2/N_2$ atmosphere, Based on characterization result, Pore size distribution and porosity was suitable for the cathode of MCFC. According to the result of dissolution, Ni solubility of modified cathode was 33% lower than that of conventional cathode. In addition, modified electrode showed a good performance from the single cell operation.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.283-285
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• 2007

The molten carbonate fuel cell has conspicuous feature and high potential in being used as an energy converter of various fuel to electricity and heat. However, the molten carbonate fuel cell which use strongly corrosive molten carbonate at $650^{\circ}C$ have many problem. Systematic investigation on corrosion behavior of stainless steels has been done 62 mole% $Li_2CO_3$ and 38 mole% $K_2CO_3$ melt at 923 K by using steady-state polarization method and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy method. It was found that SUS 310L and Al coating specimen may be the best choice among the alloys tested in this study for molten carbonate fuel cell component material.