• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.390-396
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• 2009

The flooding, especially in channel, is one of the critical issue to put proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) to practical use. In this paper, channel flooding was investigated the pressure difference at cathode channel outlet. A ratio of pressure difference changes to 25, 50% as its variation rate. The pressure variable rate is reflected in dimensionless number FN. As a result, modified dimensionless number $FN^*$ correctly predicted the channel flooding. This study analyzes that a variety of pressure difference is how to affect flooding at the cathode of the PEMFC.

• Carbon letters
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.336-342
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• 2010

Different oxidation treatments on CNTs using diluted 4.0 M $H_2SO_4$ solution at room temperature and or at $90^{\circ}C$ reflux conditions were investigated to elucidate the physical and chemical changes occurring on the treated CNTs, which might have significant effects on their performance as catalyst supports in PEM fuel cells. Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscope analyses were made for the acid treated CNTs to determine the particle size and distribution of the CNT-supported Pt-Ru nanoparticles. These CNT-supported Pt-based nanoparticles were then employed as anode catalysts in PEMFC to investigate their catalytic activity and single-cell performance towards $H_2$ oxidation. Based on PEMFC performance results, refluxed Pt-Ru/CNT catalysts prepared using CNTs treated at $90^{\circ}C$ for 0.5 h as anode have shown better catalytic activity and PEMFC polarization performance than those of the commercially available Pt-Ru/C catalyst from ETEK and other Pt-Ru/CNT catalysts developed using raw CNT, thus demonstrating the importance of acid treatment in improving and optimizing the surface properties of catalyst support.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.136-147
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• 2015

Dead-ended operation of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell(PEMFC) provides the simplification of fuel cell systems to reduce fuel consumption and weight of fuel cell. However, the water accumulation within the channel prohibits a uniform supply of fuel. Optimization of the purge strategy is required to increase the fuel cell efficiency since fuel and water are removed during the purge process. In this study, we investigated the average voltage output which depends on two interrelated conditions, namely, the supply gas pressure, purging valve open time. In addition, flow visualization was performed to better understand the water build-up on the anode side and cathode side of PEMFC in terms of a variety of the current density. We analyzed the correlation between the purge condition and water flooding.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.549-550
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• 2006

Mobile fuel cell is highlighted in these days because mobile fuel cell can contain more energy than existing batteries. Nowadays mobile devices like cellular phone, PMP(portable multi-media player), notebook, and etc. need more energy, But existing batteries like Li-ion or Ni-MH batteries are not going to satisfy such demands. In this paper, mobile fuel cell is developed. Its size is 50*70*8mm and it is made of aluminium plates. The fuel cell type is PEM and the fuel is pure hydrogen and oxygen.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.3-12
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• 2013

This paper proposes the hybrid fuel cell system that can solve disadvantages of existing fuel cell system and ensure high reliability and high stability. The system consists of PEM fuel cell, Ni-MH battery and power management system. In this system, when the power provided from the fuel cell is higher than the load power, the extra energy may be used to charge the Ni-MH battery. When the fuel cell can not provide enough energy to the load, the shortage of energy will be supplied by the Ni-MH battery. Experimental results show that the output voltage is regulated well during load variations. Also, high system efficiency is achieved.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2013.07a
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• pp.182-183
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• 2013

In the design of the fuel cell charger, it is important to find out the suitable topology and to design the converter to guarantee the performance of the fuel cell as well as the battery. Most of the chargers developed so far have used step-down converters. However, since the small fuel cell stack can only generate a low voltage, it is required to use the step-up converter to charge the battery. In this paper, a modified non-isolated boost charger topology for the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is proposed to meet the strict ripple requirements for the battery charge and its control method by using PI controller is detailed. The feasibility of the proposed topology and its control method is then verified by the experiments.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.197-199
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• 2006

The Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) are being used in a variety of applications including portable power generation, transportation and back-up power systems. In this paper presents a novel circuit model for a PEMFC that can be used to design and analyze fuel-cell power system. The Pspice-based model uses BJTs, L and C elements available in the Pspice library with some modification. The model includes the phenomena like activation polarization, ohmic polarization and mass transport effect present in a PEM fuel cell. Simulated characteristics of the fuel cell were compared with the experimental results obtained on a commercial fuel cell.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.62 no.1
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• pp.105-108
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• 2013

To resolve global environmental problems, many automobile companies are making a great deal of effort to develop so-called green-cars. One of the solutions is an electric vehicle equipped with the PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) stack. However, the cost of the stack, at the moment, is still too high. This obstacle must be resolved for commercialized fuel cell cars. One of the reasons for high cost is a relatively large amount of Pt (platinum) in the membrane. In this paper, a method for reducing the Pt-loading is introduced. Furthermore, the durability of the stack will be important for a company to stay competitive in world markets (in the future). For this, the diagnosis of the stack must be conducted on-line. Some diagnosis methods as key technology are also introduced in this paper.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.91-98
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• 2011

연료전지 차랑용에 있어서 공기 가습 및 감습의 중요성은 매우 크다. 특히 PEM(Proton Exchange Membrane)연료전지에서 수분평형은 총괄시스템성능에 큰 영향을 미치는 요소인데, 이에 관한 중요한 연구가 지금까지 광범위하게 수행되고 있다. 또한 차량과 같이 동적부하 연료전지를 활용하는 분야에 있어서, 전류의 흐름은 차량용 파워 부하에 크게 영향을 받는다. 따라서 전기적 흐름이 발생하면, 이에 따라 수분이 발생하게 되는데, 이러한 응축 수분은 예측이 되며, 수관리 시스템에서 이를 중요한 제어 기준으로 활용한다. 그러므로 적절한 제어방법을 선택하면 유입공기의 온도와 습도의 최적값을 얻을 수 있다. 따라서, 본 논문에서는 PEM 연료전지의 수관리를 위하여 수분전달 모델과 유전알고리즘(genetic algorithm)을 사용하는 제어방법에 초점을 두고 있다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.572-575
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• 2008

Flow-field design has much influence over the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) because it affects the pressure magnitude and distribution of the reactant gases. To obtain the pressure magnitude and distribution of reactant gases in four kinds of flow-field designs without additional measurement equipment, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed. After the CFD analysis, the performance values of PEMFC according to the flow-field configurations were measured via a single cell test. As expected, the pressure differences due to different flow-field configurations were related to the PEMFC performance because the actual performance results showed the same tendency as the results of the CFD analysis. A large pressure drop resulted in high PEMFC performance. So, the single serpentine configuration gave the highest performance. On the other hand, the parallel flow-field configuration gave the lowest performance because the pressure difference between inlet and outlet was the lowest.