• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.164-170
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• 2007

The Tancheon wastewater treatment plant(WWTP) in Seoul using anaerobic digestion to reduce the outlet sludge produces anaerobic digester gas which contains 65% $CH_4$ and 35% $CO_2$. The gas purification equipment was installed and operated to use Anaerobic Digester Gas(ADG) as a fuel for molten carbonate fuel cell(MCFC). The processes consist of the desulfurizer and the adsorption tower to remove $H_2S$ and siloxane in the gas. The gas purification equipment removed virtually over 95% of $H_2S$ and over 99% of siloxane. Results has demonstrated that the fuel cell can produce electrical output and hot water with negligible air emissions of CO, NOx and $SO_2$. The site provides the first opportunity in Korea for demonstrating Molten carbonate fuel cell(MCFC) which the digester gas was applied to the fuel gas.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.259-265
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• 2008

The corrosion and degradation factors of a current collector in a molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) were investigated to determine the optimized coating thickness of nickel on STS316L. The results show that the surface morphology and electrical properties depended on the nickel coating thickness. The surface morphology gradually changed from a flat to a porous structure along as the nickel coating thickness decreased, and the electrical resistance of the nickel-coated STS316L increased as the nickel coating thickness decreased. This can be attributed to the diffusion of elements of Fe and Cr from the substrate through the nickel grain boundaries. Additionally, carburization in the metal grains or grain boundaries in an anodic environment was found to influence the electrical properties due to matrix distortion. The resistance of Cr-oxide layers formed in an anodic environment causes a drop in the potential, resulting in a decrease in the system efficiency.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.20-25
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• 2011

This work focuses on the behavior of the overpotential increase due to a utilization rise in a molten carbonate fuel cell. The behavior is generally explained by Nernst loss, which is a kind of voltage loss due to the thermodynamic potential gradients in a polarization state due to the concentration distribution of reactant species through the gas flow direction. The evaluation of Nernst loss is carried out with a traditional experimental method of constant gas utilization (CU). On the other hand, overpotential due to the gas-phase mass-transport resistance at the anode and cathode shows dependence on the utilization, which can be measured using the inert gas step addition (ISA) method. Since the Nernst loss is assumed to be due to the thermodynamic reasons, the voltage loss can be calculated by the Nernst equation, referred to as a simple calculation (SC) in this work. The three values of voltage loss due to CU, ISA, and SC are compared, showing that these values rise with increases in the utilization within acceptable deviations. When we consider that the anode and cathode reactions are significantly affected by the gas-phase mass transfer, the behavior strongly implies that the voltage loss is attributable not to thermodynamic reasons, namely Nernst loss, but to the kinetic reason of mass-transfer resistance in the gas phase.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.479-484
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• 2009

The effect of anode gas channel height on gas diffusion and cell performance in a 100 $cm^2$ class molten carbonate single cell is investigated. Single cell separators with three different channel height are used. The effect of the gas channel height on the distribution of the reactive gas concentration is evaluated by the two-dimensional concentration diffusion equation. The overpotential caused by concentration drop with different channel height is estimated by the voltage decay related to diffusion of reactants, well known as concentration polarization, using limiting current density. The estimation could have the possibility to identify the reactant mass transfer polarization in the complicate factors of the overall electrodes.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.171-177
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• 2014

The current collector for the molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) which has sheared protrusions is manufactured by the three-stage forming process that integrates slitting, preforming and final forming. Due to the repetition of sheared protrusions, an effective simulation method is required to predict the mechanical behavior. In the current study, a sheet with sheared protrusions was assumed to be an orthotropic plate, which has the same length, width and height. FEM simulations were conducted to evaluate the homogenized properties of the current collector, which has 4 (longitudinal direction) x 4 (transverse direction) sheared protrusions. The simulation model was constructed using hexahedral mesh coarsening. From the verification examples, it was found that the proposed simulation method was efficient within reasonable accuracy. The calculated homogenized properties can be applied to the design of a stack for molten carbonate fuel cells and the prediction of mechanical behavior for other applications.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.147-154
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• 2019

In this study, effects of flow types and size of molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) were investigated using CFD simulation. In the simulation, the current collector of MCFCs were assumed to be an porous media. With the area of $0.09m^2$, the effect of flow types such as Co-flow, Counter-flow, Cross-flow were studied. After that the effect of the size and flow direction was studied. Among three-flow types, MCFCs with co-flow type shows more uniform distribution and current density distribution.

• 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.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.177-186
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• 2000

The molten carbonate fuel cell has conspicuous features and high potential in being used as an energy converter of various fuels to electricity and heat. However, the MCFC which use strongly corrosive molten carbonate at $650^{\circ}C$ have many problem. Systematic investigation on corrosion behavior of Fe/20Cr/Ti has been done in (62+38)mol % (Li+K) $CO_3$ melt at 923K by using. steady state polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy method. It found that the corrosion current of these Febased alloys decreased with increasing Ti content, and this attribute to the formation of $LiCrO_2$ layer at the surface.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.98-101
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• 2004

The corrosion behavior of Al-Fe coatings was studied in the wet-seal atmosphere of molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC). Fe-8Al, Fe-16Al, Fe-25Al, Fe-36Al, and Fe-70Al (in at.%) specimens were tested in Li/K carbonate at $650^{\circ}C$ by a single cell test and an immersion test. In general, the corrosion resistance of the Al-Fe coatings was enhanced due to the formation of a protective $LiAlO_2$ layer. However, when the Al-Fe coatings didn't have sufficient content of aluminum enough for maintaining the protective layer, the corrosion resistance of the Al-Fe coatings was severely degraded by the growth of non-protective scales like $LiAlO_2$. The test results revealed that the aluminum contents in the coatings should be higher than 25 at.% in order to form and maintain the protective $LiAlO_2$ layers.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.768-773
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• 1995

We describe a manufacturing method and characteristics on components of molten carbonate fuel cell. Cr, Al, AI$_{2}$O$_{3}$, Co, MgO powder were mixed with Ni powder for anode components and NiO was used for cathode electrode. The electrolyte plate consisted of LiAIO$_{2}$ and carbonate (Li$_{2}$CO$_{3}$/K$_{2}$CO$_{3}$=62/38) and these three were manufactured by doctor-blade method. As a result, open circuit voltage was 1.05[VI at Ni-10Cr anode and porosity was above 60[%].