• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.76-83
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• 2014

During PEMFC(Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) operation monitoring and diagnosis are important issues for reliability and durability. Stack defect can be followed by a critical cell voltage drop in the stack. One method for monitoring the cell voltage is CVM(Cell Voltage Monitoring), where all cells in the stack are electrically connected to a voltage measuring system and monitored these voltages. The other methods are based on the EIS(Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy) and on nonlinear frequency response. In this paper, intermodulation(IM) method for diagnosis PEMFC stack is introduced. To detect one or more critical PEMFC cell voltage PEMFC stack is excited by two or more test sinusoid current, and the frequency response of the stack voltage is analyzed. If one or more critical cell voltage exists, higher harmonics on the voltage frequency spectrum will appear. For the proposed IM method, stack simulation and experiments are conducted.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.40-43
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• 2007

The performance of PEMFC stack can be improved significantly by optimizing the design and operating conditions. As a result, the performance of daily operation showed slight deviation (0.02-0.9%) after accumulated DSS operation for 500 hrs but the stack performance was stable. Therefore, it is confirmed that it would be improved the life-time of stack and operation reliability for the commercialization of PEMFC system.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.127-135
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• 2015

High-Temperautre Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (HT-PEMFC) with phosphoric acid-doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) membrane has high power density because of high operating temperature from 100 to $200^{\circ}C$. In fuel cell stack, heat is generated by electrochemical reaction and high operating temperature makes a lot of heat. This heat is caouse of durability and performance decrease about stack. For these reasons, heat management is important in HT-PEMFC. So, we developed HT-PEMFC model and study heat flow in HT-PEMFC stack. In this study, we placed coolant plate number per cell number ratio as variable and analysed heat flow distribution in stack.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.6-10
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• 2016

Until a recent day, degradation of PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells) has been mainly studied in unit cell. But operation and degradation of real PEMFC going along in stack instead of unit cell. Therefore in this work, ADT (Accelerated Degradation Test) of PEMFC was done in stack and the result from stack's test was compared with that of unit cell. The polymer electrolyte membrane was degraded by repeated electrochemical and mechanical degradation method among several ADT methods. Current densities of MEA at 0.6V decreased in stack and unit cell, 28.4% and 27.8% respectively after ADT for 312 hours. Hydrogen crossover current densities of membrane increased in stack and unit cell, 16.8% and 15.2% respectively after ADT for 312 hours. The result of ADT in stack was similar that of ADT in unit cell, which showed that ADT method of unit cell was available to the stack.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.374-377
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• 2005

Hyundai motor company has designed a above 50kW-class PEMFC stack for Fuelcell vehicle based on SUV. Hyundai increased the power density of the stack through the optimized flowfield of bipolar plate, manifold structure, and improvement of sealing, etc. Also, Gas to Gas humidifier was adopted in fuelcell system to reduce the system humidification load, it had been proven by short stack test. Components of stack, bilpolar plate, manifold, were analyzed through the computer simulation, so temperature and pressure distribution in the components and system were improved. This stack tested in Bread Board which was organized similar to real vehicle system.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.144-154
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• 2016

HT-PEMFC (high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell) using PA (phosphoric acid) doped PBI (polybenzimidazole) membrane has been researched for extending the lifetime. However, the existing work on durability of HT-PEMFC focuses on identifying degradation causes of lab scale. The short life time of HT-PEMFC is still the problem for its commercialization. In this paper, an operating method to maximize life time of 5kW HT-PEMFC stack are proposed. The proposed method includes major steps such as minimization of OCV (Open Circuit Voltage) exposure, control of the proper stack temperature, and N2 purging for the stack. This long life operating method was based on the fragmentary results of degradation from previous research works. Experimentally, the 5 kW homemade HT-PEMFC stack was operated for a long time based on the proposed method and the stack successfully can operate within the desired degradation rate for the target life time.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.315-323
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• 2021

The air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) stacks, which is widely used in small-sized PEMFC, have a problem in that durability is weaker than that of the water-cooled type. Because the cathode is open to the atmosphere and the structural problem of the air-cooled stack, which is difficult to maintain airtightness, is highly likely to form a hydrogen/air boundary during start-up/shut-down (SU/SD). Through the accelerated durability evaluation of the 20 W air-cooled PEMFC stack, the purpose of this study was to find out the cause of the degradation of the stack and to contribute to the improvement of the durability of the air-cooled PEMFC stack. In this study, it was possible to evaluate durability in a relatively short time by reducing 20-30% of initial performance by repeating SU/SD 1,000 to 1,200 times on an air-cooled PEMFC stack. After disassembling the stack, each cell was divided into two and the performance analysis showed that the electrode degradation was more severe in the anode outlet membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which facilitates air inflow as a whole, than in the inlet MEA. It was shown that the cathode Pt was dissolved/precipitated to deteriorate the polymer ionomer inside the membrane.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.12-19
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• 2022

Cathode open-type PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells) stacks, which are widely used in small transport-type PEMFC, have a problem with poor durability. Through the accelerated durability test of the 13-cell PEMFC stack, we tried to find the cause of the degradation of the stack and to contribute to the improvement of the durability of the cathode open stack. A hydrogen/air boundary is formed during start-up/shut-down (SU/SD) due to the structural problem of the cathode open stack in which the cathode is open to the atmosphere and it is difficult to maintain airtightness, thereby deteriorating the cathode. In this study, it was possible to evaluate the durability in a relatively short time by reducing the 54% of the initial performance by repeating SU/SD 1,800 times on the cathode open stack. After dismantling the stack, each cell was divided into two and the performance was analyzed. Overall, the anode outlet MEA, which facilitates air inflow, showed more severe electrode deterioration than the inlet MEA, confirming that the hydrogen/air boundary formation during SU/SD is the main cause of degradation.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.499-504
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• 2009

The effect of gas diffusion layer (GDL) compression caused by different stack clamping pressures on fuel cell performance was experimentally studied in a miniature 5-cell proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack. Three stacks with different GDL compressions, 15%, 35% and 50%, were prepared using SGL 10BC carbon fiber felt GDL and Gore 57 series MEA. The PEMFC stack performance and the stack stability were enhanced with increasing stack clamping pressure resulting in the best performance and stability for the stack with higher GDL compressions up to 50%. The excellent performance of the stack with high GDL compression was mainly due to the reduced contact resistance between GDL and bipolar plate in the stack, while reduced gas permeability of the excessively compressed GDL in the stack hardly affected the stack performance. The high stack clamping pressure also resulted in excessive GDL compression under the rib areas of bipolar plate and large GDL intrusion into the channels of the plate, which reduced the by-pass flow in the channels and increase gas pressure drop in the stack. It seems that these phenomena in the highly compressed stack enhance the water management in the stack and lead to the high stack stability.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.8
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• pp.740-746
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• 2008

In this paper, robust structural design of the PEMFC stack gasket is pursued with Taguchi method by considering the noise factor in stack assembly. The study of noise problem in stacking is required to secure the safety and performance improvement of PEMFC stack. The design parameters in the Taguchi method are selected so that the structural responses are insensitive to the noise factors. In the gasket analysis, a Mooney-Rivlin strain energy function is used to consider hyperelasticity between load and displacement. By uni-axial and equi-biaxial tension tests of the gasket, the material properties are determined for the use in robust design of PEMFC gasket. The robust design of the PEMFC stack may provide structural reliability.