• 전기학회논문지
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• 제62권1호
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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.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제34권8호
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• pp.767-774
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• 2010

수동공기공급형 고분자 전해질 연료전지는 팬을 이용하여 주변의 공기를 스택에 공급한다. 공급된 공기는 연료로 쓰이는 동시에 스택의 냉각에도 사용된다. 이러한 방식은 시스템에서 가습기, 공기 압축기, 냉각수 설비를 제거할 수 있어서 시스템을 단순화 시키고 경량화 시킬 수 있는 반면 냉각성능은 기존의 냉각수를 이용하는 방식에 비하여 떨어진다. 따라서 시스템의 신뢰성 확보를 위하여 최적의 냉각 성능을 낼 수 있도록 스택을 설계하는 것이 중요하다. 본 연구에서는 고분자 전해질 연료전지 스택의 냉각성능 향상을 위하여 다양한 채널 형상, 공기극의 유량분포, 외부 대류열전달계수의 변화가 스택의 온도분포에 미치는 영향에 대한 전산해석을 수행하였다. 그 결과, 채널의 rib이 두꺼운 경우에 냉각성능이 가장 뛰어났으며 유량을 중앙부에 집중시킨 경우에 고온집중 현상이 감소하였다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2005년도 춘계학술대회
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• pp.339-344
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• 2005

A PEMFC system model for FCEV was constructed and simulated numerically to examine the heat/water flow of the system and air/fuel humidification process for various operation conditions (ambient pressure /temperature/humidity, operating temperature, power load). We modeled PEMFC stack which can generate maximum electricity of about 80 kW. This stack consists of 400 unit cells and each unit cell has $250cm^2$ reacting area. Uniform current density and uniform operating voltage per each cell was assumed. The results show the flow characteristics of heat and water at each component of PEMFC system in macro-scale. The capacity shortage of the radiator occurred when the ambient was hot $(over\;40^{\circ}C)$ and power level was high (over 50 kW). In spite of some heat release by evaporation of water in stack, heat unbalance reached to 20kW approximately in such a severe operating condition. This heat unbalance could be recovered by auxiliary radiators or high speed cooling fan with additional cost. In cold environment, the capacity of radiator exceeded the net heat generation to be released, which may cause a problem to drop the operating temperature of stack. We dealt with this problem by regulating mass flow rate of coolant and radiator fan speed. Finally, water balance was not easily broken when we retrieved condensed and/or unused water.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2011년도 춘계학술대회 초록집
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• pp.87.1-87.1
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• 2011

The residential Fuel Cell system has high efficiency of 85% with transferring natural gas to electrical power and heat, directly and it is a friendly environmental new technology in that $CO_2$ emission can reduce 40% compared with conventional power generator and boiler. The residential fuel cell system consists of two main parts which have electrical and hot storage units. The electrical unit contains a fuel processor, a stack, an inverter, a control unit and balance of plant(BOP), and the cogeneration unit has heat exchanger, hot water tank, and auxiliaries. 5kW class fuel process was developed and tested from 2009, it was evaluated for long-term durability and reliability test including with improvement in optimal operation logic. Stack development was crried out through improvement of design and evaluation protocol. Development of system controller was successfully accomplished through strenuous efforts and original control logic was optimized in 5kW class PEMFC system. In addition, we have been focused on development of system process and assembly technology, which bring about excellent improvement of reliability of system. The 5kW class PEMFC system was operated under dynamic conditions for 1,000 hours and it showed a good performance of total efficiency and durability.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.42-48
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• 2016

This study presents an experiment investigation on natural convection heat transfer of air-cooling Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) in a enclosure system for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Considered are replacing fuel cell stack with Aluminum block for heat generating inside a enclosure chamber. The volume ratio of fuel cell stack and chamber for simulation to the actual size of aerial vehicle is 1 to 15. The parameters considered for experimental study are the environmental temperature range from $25^{\circ}C$ to $-60^{\circ}C$ and the block heat input of 10 W, 20 W and 30 W. Effect of the thermal conductivity of the block and power level on heat transfer in the chamber are investigated. Experimental results illustrate the temperature rise at various locations inside the chamber as dependent upon heat input of fuel cell stack and environmental temperature. From the results, dimensionless correlation in natural convection was proposed with Nusselt number and Rayleigh number for designing air-cooling PEMFC powered high altitude long endurance (HALE) UAV.

• 설비공학논문집
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• 제19권4호
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• pp.339-345
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• 2007

In the present study, a 10-cell PEMFC stack with straight type cathode flow channels is employed to investigate the effect of inlet air flow header configuration on the overall fuel cell performance. Four different types of inlet flow headers are considered and the flow patterns according to the air inlet flow header configuration are numerically obtained. The computed result for a modified header predicts about 8.5% improvement in the air flow distribution at 10-cell cathode channel inlets. Experiments are also carried out to confirm the numerical findings by measuring actual air flow distributions and the polarization curves of the PEMFC stack.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2011년도 추계학술대회 초록집
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• pp.89.2-89.2
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• 2011

In automotive applicatons or water vehicles, the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) stack is keep moving while their operation. Especially the inclination environment can take a effect to fuel cell stack perfromance, because this condition can cause a bad effect to water exhaust of fuel cell stack. In this study, a large scale stack(over 100kW power) is inclined upto 30 degree in lengthwise and crosswise using stack lift equipment. And the stack is operated in 10~100% load. No significant change has appeared in crosswise inclined condition and lenthwise low angle. But in lenthwise large angle tilting condition, the fuel cell performance has significantly decreased. And this performance decrease is aggravated in low load. An active water exhaust device is applied to the stack to prevent the performance decrease. And in lenthwise large angle tilting condition, this device cause a good effect to fuel cell stack performance.

• 한국공작기계학회논문집
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.75-80
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• 2005

An experimental study is carried out to investigate the performance and the efficiency humidifying Membrane Electrolyte Assembly and having the double-tied catalyst layers in a fuel cell system which is taken into account the physical and thermal concept. Subsequently, an electric output produced by PEMFC(Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell) is measured to assess the performance of a stack, and the efficiency is also evaluated according to the different situation in which unit cell is placed with and without the humidification of the MEA. It is found that the measured values of stack voltage and current are influenced by the stack temperature, humidification, and the double-tied catalyst layers which give more enhanced values to be applied to electric units.

• 한국수소및신에너지학회논문집
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.39-45
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• 2004

A 12-cell PEMFC stack was fabricated using the TiN-coated 316 stainless steel bipolar plates as substitute for the expensive and brittle graphite bipolar plates. Open cirtuit voltage and the maximum power of the stack was 12.08 V and 1.197 kW (199.5 A @ 6 V), respectively. Volumetric and gravimetric power density of the stack was calculated to be 373 W/L and 168 W/kg, respectively. Performance of each cell was quite uniform initially while degraded at a singnificantly different rate. During the 1,000 hr-operation at a constant load of 48 A, stack voltage decreased from 9.0 to 7.98 V at a degradation rate of 11 %/1,000 hr. However, degradation rate of each cell was in the wide rage from 1.2 to 31 %/1,000 hr.

• 대한금속재료학회지
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• 제47권11호
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• pp.722-727
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• 2009

The bipolar plates are not only the major part of the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack in weight and volume, but also a significant contributor to the stack costs. Stainless steels are considered to be good candidates for bipolar plate materials of the PEMFC due to their low cost, high strength and easy machining, as well as corrosion resistance. In this paper, 316L stainless steel with and without nitrogen ion implantation were tested in simulated PEMFC environments for application as bipolar plates. The results showed that the nitride formed by nitrogen ion implantation contributed the decrease of the interfacial contact resistance without degradation of corrosion property. The combination of excellent properties indicated that nitrogen ion implanted stainless steel could be potential candidate materials as bipolar plates in PEMFC. Current efforts have focused on optimizing the condition of ion implantation.