• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.59 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2021

The PEM(Proton Exchange Membrane)water electrolysis uses the same PEM electrolyte membrane as the PEM fuel cell and proceeds by the same reaction but the opposite direction. The PEM fuel cell has many methods of degradation analysis since many studies have been conducted on the degradation and durability of the membrane and catalyst. We examined whether PEM fuel cell durability evaluation method can be applied to PEM electrolytic durability evaluation. During the PEM electrolytic degradation process, LSV(Linear sweep voltammetry), CV(Cyclic voltammetry), Impedance, SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) and FT-IR(Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy) were analyzed and compared under the same conditions as the PEM fuel cell. As the PEM fuel cell, hydrogen passing through the membrane was oxidized at the Pt/C electrode, and the hydrogen permeation current density was measured to analyze the degree of degradation of the PEM membrane. Electrode degradation could be analyzed by measuring the electrode active area (ECSA) by CV under hydrogen/nitrogen flowing conditions. While supplying hydrogen and air to the Pt/C electrode and the IrO2 electrode, the impedance of each electrode was measured to evaluate the durability of the electrode and membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.207-214
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• 2009

Crossover of nitrogen from cathode to anode is inevitable in typical membranes used in PEM fuel cells. This crossovered nitrogen normally accumulates in the hydrogen recirculation system at anode side channels. Excessive buildup of nitrogen in the anode side lowers the relative hydrogen concentration and finally affects the performance of fuel cell stack. So it is very important to analysis the nitrogen gas crossover at various operating conditions. In this study, characterization of nitrogen gas crossover in PEM fuel cell stack was investigated. The mass spectroscopy (MS) has been applied to measure the amount of the crossovered nitrogen gas at the anode exit. Results show that nitrogen gas crossover rate was affected by current density, anode and cathode stoichiometric ratio and operating pressure. Current density, anode stoichiometric ratio and anode operating pressure do not affect nitrogen crossover rate but anode exit concentration of nitrogen. Cathode pressure and stoichiometric ratio largely affect the nitrogen crossover rate.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.382-387
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• 2012

Water balance has a significant impact on the overall fuel cell system performance. Proper water management should provide an adequate membrane hydration and avoidance of water flooding in the catalyst layer and gas diffusion layer. Considering the important of advanced water management in PEM fuel cell, this study proposes a simple one dimensional water transportation model of PEM fuel cell for use in a dynamic condition. The model has been created by assumption that the output is the water liquid saturation difference. The liquid saturation change is the total difference between the additional water and the removal water on the system. The water addition is obtained from fuel cell reaction and the electro osmotic drag. The water removal is obtained from capillary transport and evaporation process. The result shows that the capillary water transport of low temperature fuel cell is high because the evaporation rate is low.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.99-102
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• 2006

Optimal flow-field design of bipolar-plates for a commercial class PEM(polymer electrolyte membrane) fuel cell stack was carried out on the basis of three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics(CFD) simulation. A three-dimensional CFD model originally developed by Shimpalee et al., has been utilized for performing large-scale simulation of a single fuel cell consisting of bipolar-plates gas diffusion layers, and a membrane-electrode-assembly(MEA). The CFD model is able to predict the current density, pressure drops, gas velocities, vapor and liquid water contents, temperature distributions, etc. inside a single fuel cell. Depending on simulation results from the CFD modeling of a PEM fuel cell, several flow-fields of bipolar-plates were designed and verified. The final design of the bipolar-plate has been chosen from the simulations and experimental tests and showed the best performance as expected from the simulation results under a normal operating condition. Thus, the CFD simulation approach to design the optimal flow-field of the bipolar-plates was successful. The final design was adopted as the best flow-field to build a commercial scale PEM fuel cell stack, the performance of which shows about 42% higher than that of the older bipolar-plate design.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.539-542
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• 2007

The transient response of PEMFC (proton exchange membrane fuel cell) is important criteria in the application of PEM fuel cell to real automotive system. In this work, using a transparent unit PEM fuel cell, the transient response and cathode flooding during load change are investigated. The cell voltage is acquired according to the current density change($0.3Acm^2$ to $0.6A/cm^2$) under various stoichiometry conditions and different flooding intensities, Also the cathode gas channel images are obtained by CCD imaging system simultaneously. The different level of undershoots appeared at the moment of load changes under different cathode stoichiometries and flooding intensities. The correlation of the dynamic behavior with stoichiometry and cathode flooding is induced from the results of these experiments.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.89-90
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• 2006

The bipolar plate is a major component of the PEM fuel cell stack, which takes a large portion of stack cost. In this study, as alternative materials fur bipolar plate of PEM fuel cells, graphite composites were fabricated by compression molding. Graphite particles mixed with epoxy resin were used as the main substance to provide electric conductivity. Flow channels were fabricated by compression molding, and design of experiments (DOE) was applied to the tests to evaluate moldability. Results showed that land width and channel depth were two significant factors for moldability, and channel width had little influence on the moldability.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.213-227
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• 2020

As unrenewable energy resources have depleted over the years, the demand for renewable energy has increased promoting research for more effective methods to produce renewable energy. The field of fuel cell development, specifically microbial fuel cells (MFCs), has developed because of the dual performance potential of the technology. MFCs convert power by facilitating electrode-reducing organisms such as bacteria (microbes) as a catalyst to produce electrical energy. MFCs use domestic and industrial wastewater as fuel to initiate the process, purifying the wastewater as a result. Proton exchange membranes (PEM) play a crucial role in MFCs as a separator between the anodes and cathodes chambers allowing only protons to effectively pass through. Nafion is the commercially used PEM for MFCs, but there are many setbacks: such as cost, production time, and less effective proton conductivity properties. In this review there will be largely two parts. Firstly, several newly developed PEM are discussed as possible replacements of Nafion. Secondly, MFC based on PEM, blended PEM and composite PEM are summarized.

• Proceedings of the KSR Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.1984-1989
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• 2008

A powered system with fuel cell is regarded as a high current and low voltage source. Effects of the loads on the electrical power source are important to optimize the integrated power system. The design parameters of the system should be chosen by taking into account the characteristics of the fuel cell, so the costs of the power system at given operating conditions can be reduced. Furthermore, the dynamics characteristic of the system is crucial to acquire performance in applications, particularly interactions between loads and the fuel cell system. Currently, no integrated simulation has been approached to analyze interrelated effects. Therefore, the dynamic models of power conversion system with a PEM fuel cell that includes the PEM fuel cell stack, DC/DC converter and associated controls is developed. Electric lads for the system are derived by using a power theory that separates a load current into active, reactive, distortion or a mixed current component. Dependency of the DC capacitor on the loads are analyzed.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.14-19
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• 2007

A flow channel model of a bipolar plate with varying cross-sectional area was newly designed for improving performance and efficiency of a PEM fuel cell stack. As a result, the varying cross-sectional area model showed poor uniformity in velocity distribution, however, maximum velocity in the flow path is about 30% faster than that of the uniform cross-sectional area model. The proposed varying cross-sectional area model is expected to diffuse operating fluids more easily into diffusion layer because it has relatively higher values in pressure distribution compared with other flow channel models. It is expected that the implementation of the varying cross-sectional area model can reduce not only the mass transport loss but also the activation loss in a PEM fuel cell, and open circuit voltage of a fuel cell can thus be increased slightly.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.891-897
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• 2012

In this paper, the observer based nonlinear state feedback controller has been developed to control the pressures of the oxygen and the hydrogen in the PEM(Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell system. Nonlinear model of the PEM fuel cell system was introduced to study the design problems of the state observer and model based controller. A cascade observer using the filtering technique was used to estimate the pressure derivatives of the cathode and the anode in the system. In order to estimate the pressures of the cathode and the anode, the sliding mode observer was designed by using these pressure derivatives. To estimate the oxygen pressure and the hydrogen pressure in the system, the nonlinear state observer was designed by using the cathode pressure estimates and the anode it. These results will be very useful to design the state feedback controller. The validity of the proposed observers and the controller has been investigated by using the Lyapunov's stability analysis strategy.