• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.96-110
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• 2024

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are green energy conversion devices, for which commercial markets have been established, owing to their application in fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). Development of cathode electrocatalysts, replacing commercial Pt/C, plays a crucial role in factors such as cost reduction, high performance, and durability in FCVs. PtNi octahedral catalysts are promising for oxygen reduction reactions owing to their significantly higher mass activity (10-15 times) than that of Pt/C; however, their application in membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) is challenged by their low stability. To overcome this durability issue, various approaches, such as third-metal doping, composition control, halide treatment, formation of a Pt layer, annealing treatment, and size control, have been explored and have shown promising improvements in stability in rotating disk electrode (RDE) testing. In this review, we aimed to compare the features of each strategy in terms of enhancing stability by introducing a stability improvement factor for a direct and reasonable comparison. The limitations of each strategy for enhancing stability of PtNi octahedral are also described. This review can serve as a valuable guide for the development of strategies to enhance the durability of octahedral PtNi.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.59-68
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• 2009

Fuel cell generators as the distributed generation system with a few hundred watt$\sim$a few hundred kilowatt capacity, can supply the high quality electric power to user as compared with conventional large scale power plants. In this paper, PEMFC(polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell) generator as micro-source is modelled by using PSIM simulation software and DSP based fuel cell hardware simulator based on the PSIM simulation model is implemented. The relation of fuel cell voltage and current(V-I curve) is linearized by first order function on the ohmic area in voltage-current curve of fuel cell. The implemented system is composed of a PEMFC hardware simulator, an isolated full bridge dc boost converter, and a 60[Hz] voltage source PWM inverter. The voltage-current-power(V-I-P) characteristics of the implemented fuel cell hardware simulator are verified in load variation and transient state and the 60[Hz] output voltage sinusoidal waveform of the PWM inverter is investigated under the resistance load and nonlinear diode load.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.36-40
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• 2003

Freezing of water in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) may cause severe problems in driving a fuel cell vehicle during the winter time. Characteristics of PEMFC which suffered low temperatures below zero degree was examined with the thermal cycles from 80 to $-10^{\circ}C$. With the thermal cycles, the cell performance was degraded due to the phase transformation and volume changes of water. Effects of freezing of water in PEMFC on the electrode structure and polarization resistance were examined by BET analysis, cyclic voltammetry, and AC impedance spectroscopy.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society for Energy Engineering kosee Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.103-108
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• 2004

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.339-356
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• 2018

Although fuel cell systems have advantages in terms of electric efficiency and environmental impact compared with conventional power systems, fuel cell systems have not been deployed widely due to their low reliability and high price. In order to guarantee the lifetime of 10 years, which is the commercialization goal of Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), it is necessary to improve durability and reliability through optimized operation and maintenance technologies. Due to the complexity of components and their degradation phenomena, it's not easy to develop and apply the diagnose and prognostic methodologies for PEFCs. The purpose of the paper is to show the current state on PEFC prognostic technology for condition based maintenance. For the prognostic of PEFCs, the model driven method, the data-driven, and the hybrid method can be applied. The methods reviewed in this paper can contribute to the development of technologies to reduce the life cycle cost of fuel cells and increase the reliability through prognostics-based health management system.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.868-877
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• 2011

This paper presents a parallel computing methodology for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) and detailed simulation contours of a real-scale fuel cell. In this work, a three-dimensional two-phase PEFC model is applied to a large-scale 200 $cm^2$ fuel cell geometry that requires roughly 13.5 million grid points based on grid-independence study. For parallel computing, the large-scale computational domain is decomposed into 12 sub-domains and parallel simulations are carried out using 12 processors of 2.53 GHz Intel core i7 and 48GB RECC DDR3-1333. The work represents the first attempt to parallelize a two-phase PEFC code and illustrate two-phase contours in a representative industrial cell.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.118-122
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• 2003

The performance evaluation on Pt loading in the self-humidifying polymer electrolyte membrane for Polymer Electrolyte Mem-Brane Fuel Cell(PEMFC) was investigated by using single cell test and measurement of membrane resistance. The self-humidifying membrane comprised two membranes made of perfluorosulfonylfluroride copolymer resin and fine Pt particles tying between them, coated by sputtering. From the results of performance characteristics of self-humidifying membrane cell with different Pt loading, a single cell using self-humidifying membrane with 0.15 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ Pt loading showed better performance than that with the others over entire current density. Also, a single cell with 0.15 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ Pt loading had a lower resistance value than the other cells under externally nonhumidifying condition. It is indicated that the water produced in the membrane cell with 0.15 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$ Pt loading showed a higher provision to maintain ionic conductivity of the membrane than the other cells. The optimum amount of Pt particles embedded in the membrane for self-humidifying PEMFC was determined to be about 0.15 mg/$\textrm{cm}^2$.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.252-272
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• 2017

Fuel cell systems have to satisfy acceptable operating reliability, sufficient lifetime and price to enter the market in competition with existing products. Fuel cells are made up of complex element technologies and various problems related to the failure of the components can affect the reliability and safety of the system. This problem can be overcome by introducing a monitoring and supervisory control system in addition to automatic control to detect the failure of the fuel cell quickly and properly diagnose the performance degradation. For the fault detection and diagnosis of polymer electrolyte fuel cells, the model based method using the theoretical superposition value and the non-model based method of checking the signal tendency or the converted signal characteristic can be applied. The methods analyzed in this paper can contribute to the development of integrated monitoring and control technology for the whole system as well as the stack.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.131-135
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• 2011

It is, in general, believed that during the activation process, the proton conductivity increases due to wetting effect and the electrochemical resistance reduction, resulting in an increase in the fuel cell performance with time. However, until now, very scant information is available on the understanding of activation processes. In this study, dominant variables that effect on the performance increase of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) during the activation process were investigated. Wetting, pore restructuring and active metal utilization were analyzed systematically. Unexpectedly, the changes for both ohmic and reaction resistance characterized by the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) after initial wetting process were much smaller when considering the degree of cell performance increases. However, the EIS spectra represents that the pore opening of electrode turns into gas transportable structure more easily. The increase in the performance with activation cycles was also investigated in a view of active metals. Though the particle size was grown, the number of effective active sites might be exposed more. The impurity removal and catalytic activity enhancement measured by cyclic voltammetry (CV) could be a strong evident. The results and analysis revealed that, not merely wetting of membrane but also restructuring of electrodeand catalytic activity increase are important factors for the fast and efficient activation of the polymer electrolyte fuel cells.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.34-42
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• 2012

Gas diffusion layers (GDLs) of carbon composite type in polymer electrolyte fuel cells were prepared by simple and cheap manufacturing process. To obtain the carbon composite GDLs, carbon black with polymer binder was mixed in solvent, rolled to make sheet, and finally heat-treated at $340^{\circ}C$. The performance of fuel cell using composite GDLs was changed by PTFE content. The physical properties of composite GDLs for pore, conductivity and air permeability were analyzed to compare with the variation of fuel cell performance. The conductivity of composite GDLs was very similar to carbon paper as commercial GDL but pore properties and air flux were considerably different. The porosity, PTFE content and conductivity for composite GDLs did not have an influence on the cell performance much. The increase of pore diameter and air flux led to enhance cell performance.