• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.611-612
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• 2005

Fuel cells is proved that potential energy is greater than the existing power generation. In this paper, we describe a principle of fuel cell which is used for next generation portable battery and brief characteristic of direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) that used for portable appliances by miniaturization of polymer electrolyte fuel cell. Lastly we describe about research investment for fuel cells.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.476-483
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• 2012

Proper water management is crucial for the efficient operation of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Especially, for automotive applications, A novel water management that can avoid both membrane dry-out and flooding is a very important task to achieve good performance and efficiency of PEM fuel cells. The aim of this study is to investigate the liquid water behavior on the gas diffusion layer (GDL) surface and in the cathode flow channel of a PEM unit fuel cell under flooding conditions. For this purpose, a transparent unit fuel cell is devised and fabricated by modifying the conventional PEM fuel cell design. The results of water droplet behavior under flooding conditions are mainly presented. The water distributions in the cathode flow channels with cell operating voltage are also compared and analyzed. Through this work, it is expected that the data obtained from this fundamental study can be effectively used to establish the basic water management strategy in terms of water removal from the flow channels in a PEM fuel cell stack.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.325-343
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• 2023

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) have been attracting attention as energy conversion devices that can directly supply methanol liquid fuel without a fuel reforming process. The commercial polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) currently applied to DMFC are perfluorosulfonic acid ionomer-based PEMs, which exhibit high proton conductivity and physicochemical stability during the operation. However, problems such as high methanol permeability and environmental pollutants generated during decomposition require the development of PEMs for DMFCs using novel ionomers. Recently, studies have been reported to develop PEMs using hydrocarbon-based ionomers that exhibit low fuel permeability and high physicochemical stability. This review introduces the following studies on hydrocarbon-based PEMs for DMFC applications: 1) synthesis of grafting copolymers that exhibit distinct hydrophilic/hydrophobic phase-separated structure to improve both proton conductivity and methanol selectivity, 2) introduction of cross-linked structure during PEM fabrication to reduce the methanol permeability and improve dimensional stability, and 3) incorporation of organic/inorganic composites or reinforcing substrates to develop reinforced composite membranes showing improved PEM performances and durability.

• 한국전기화학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.06a
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• pp.145-150
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• 2001

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.640-643
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• 2009

The effect of the kind of gas diffusion layers (GDLs) on the freeze/thaw condition durability in polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) were investigated. For this purpose, three kinds of GDLs, i.e., felt, paper and cloth types with different basic properties have been first prepared, then the changes in the properties and performance of cells was observed during the freeze/thaw cycles ranging from -30 to 70 $^{\circ}C$. The single cells consisting of different GDLs were evaluated for performance. The performance degradation and the cell resistance increase could be directly correlated. The physical destruction of electrode was shown by SEM analysis. It was presented that mechanical supporting force of interface between materials can help enhancing the durability of PEFCs in the freeze/thaw condition.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.96-98
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• 2006

Proper water management is vital to achieve high performance and durability of PEFC (Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell). The effects of the residual water from PEFC after purge in shut-down processes on GDL/MEAs were investigated with freeze/thaw cycles Freeze/thaw cycle tests were conducted with single cells which were designed from transparent acryl plates. Single cells which contain several amount of residual water were cycles from $80^{\circ}C$ to $-28^{\circ}C$. The resistance changes of the single cells which have various amount of residual water were evaluated by ac-impedance analysis with 24 times of freeze/thaw cycles. Also, after the freeze/thaw cycles, the property changes were characterized by visual methods such as SEM, EPMA. Though it was difficult to observe noticeable property changes in the visual characterizations, the resistance of cells dramatically increased with the amount of remained water.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.528-535
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• 2017

Fuel cells have been spotlighted in the world for being highly efficient and environmentally friendly. A hydrogen which is the fuel of fuel cell can be obtained from a number of sources. Hydrogen source for operating the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) in the current underwater environment, such as a submarine and unmanned underwater vehicles are currently from the metal hydride cylinder. However, metal hydride has many limitations for using hydrogen carrier, such as large volume, long charging time, limited storage capacity. To solve these problems, we suggest diesel reformer for hydrogen supply source. Diesel fuel has many advantages, such as high hydrogen storage density, easy to transport and also well-infra structure. However, conventional diesel reforming system for PEMFC requires a large volume and complex CO removal system for lowering the CO level to less than 10 ppm. In addition, because the preferential oxidation(PROX) reaction is the strong exothermic reaction, cooling load is required. By changing this PROX reactor to hydrogen separation membrane, the problem from PROX reactor can be solved. This is because hydrogen separation membranes are small and permeable to pure hydrogen. In this study, we conducted the pressurized diesel reforming and water-gas shift reaction experiment for the hydrogen separation membrane application. Then, the hydrogen permeation experiments were performed using a Pd alloy membrane for the reformate gas.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.442-455
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• 2022

High-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC) has been studied as an alternative to low-temperature PEMFC due to its fast activation of electrodes and high resistance to electrode poisoning by carbon monoxide. It is highly required to develop stable PEMs operating at high temperatures even doped by ion-conducting materials for the development of high-performance and durable HT-PEMFC systems. A number of studies have been conducted to develop polybenzimidazole (PBI)-based PEMs for applications in HT-PEMFC due to their high interaction with doped ion-conducting materials and outstanding thermomechanical stability under high-temperature operation. This review focused on the development of PBI-based PEMs showing high performance and durability. Firstly, the characteristic behavior of PBI-based PEMs doped with various ion-conducting materials including phosphoric acid was systematically investigated. And then, a comparison of the physicochemical properties of the PEMs according to the different membrane manufacturing processes was conducted. Secondly, the incorporation of porous polytetrafluoroethylene substrate and/or inorganic composites to PBI matrix to improve the membrane performances was studied. Finally, the construction of cross-linked structures into PBI-based PEM systems by polymer blending method was introduced to improve the PEM properties.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.842-851
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• 2011

A multi-cell test system with 25 independent cells is used to test different electrode materials simultaneously for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Twenty-five segmented membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) having the same or different Pt-loading are prepared to analyze the performance deviation of cells in the multi-cell test system. Improvements in the multi-cell test system are made by ensuring that the system performs voltage sensing for the cells individually and inserting optimum gaskets between the MEAs and the graphite plates. The cell performances are improved and their deviations are significantly decreased by these modifications. The performance deviations changed according to various cell configurations because the operating conditions of the cells, such as the gas flow and concentration, differed. This cell system can be used to test multiple electrodes simultaneously because it shows relatively uniform performance under the same conditions as well as linear correlation with various catalyst loadings.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.510-514
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• 2013

The structural change of Nafion polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) induced by hot-pressing, which is one of the representative procedures for preparing membrane-electrode-assembly for low temperature fuel cells, was investigated by $^2H$ nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The hydrophilic channels were asymmetrically flattened and more aligned in the membrane plane than along the hot-pressing direction. The average O-$^2H$ director of $^2H_2O$ in polymer electrolyte membrane was employed to extract the structural information from the $^2H$ NMR peak splitting data. The dependence of $^2H$ NMR data on water contents was systematically analyzed for the first time. The approach presented here can be used to understand the chemicals' behavior in nano-spaces, especially those reshaping and functioning interactively with the chemicals in the wet and/or mixed state.