• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.643-651
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• 2019

Polybenzimidazole (PBI), an engineering polymer with well-known excellent thermal, chemical and mechanical stabilities has been recognized as an alternative to high temperature polymer electrolyte membranes (HT-PEMs). This review focuses on recent advances made on the development of PBI-based HT-PEMs for fuel cell applications. PBI-based membranes discussed were prepared by various strategies such as structural modification, cross-linking, blending and organic-inorganic composites. In addition, intriguing properties of the PBI-based membranes as well as their fuel cell performances were highligted.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• spring
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• pp.21-37
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• 2005

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.151-156
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• 2005

Many researchers have been focused on polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) to improve performance of a fuel cell. Sulfonpolyimide with hydrocarbon was synthesized from ODA (4,4-diaminodiphenyl ether), ODADS (4,4-diaminodiphenyl ether-2,2-disulfonic acid), NTDA (1,4,5,8-naphthalenetetracarboxylicdianhydride) and CSA (chlorosulfonic acid). In order to estimate the feasibility as a fuel cell, the performance of sulfonpolyimide was analyzed through a swelling degree, IEC (ion exchange capacity), ion conductivity and TEM (transmission electron microscope). As the results of this performance test, swelling degree, IEC and ion conductivity were 37%, 0.06 meq/g and 0.08 S/cm respectively, when the CSA concentration was 0.4 M. It was thought that sulfonpolyimide could be used as a fuel cell through improvement of electrolyte membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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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.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.8-18
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• 2012

This paper presents a three-dimensional, transient cold-start polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) model to numerically evaluate the effects of membrane electrode assembly (MEA) design and cell location in a PEFC stack on PEFC cold start behaviors. The cold-start simulations show that the end cell experiences significant heat loss to the sub-freezing ambient and thus finally cold-start failure due to considerable ice filling in the cathode catalyst layer. On the other hand, the middle cells in the stack successfully start from $-30^{\circ}C$ sub-freezing temperature due to rapid cell temperature rise owing to the efficient use of waste heat generated during the cold-start. In addition, the simulation results clearly indicate that the cathode catalyst layer (CL) composition and thickness have an substantial influence on PEFC cold-start behaviors while membrane thickness has limited effect mainly due to inefficient water absorption and transport capability at subzero temperatures.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.46-53
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• 2011

Water is continuously produced in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), and is transported and exhausted through polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM), catalyst layer (CL), microporous layer (MPL), and gas diffusion layer (GDL). The low operation temperatures of PEMFC lead to the condensation of water, and the condensed water hinders the transport of reactants in porous layers (MPL and GDL). Thus, water flooding is currently one of hot issues that should be solved to achieve higher performance of PEMFC. This research aims to study liquid water transport in porous layers of PEMFC by using pore-network model, while the microscale pore structure and hydrophilic/hydrophobic surface properties of GDL and MPL were fully considered.

• 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.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.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.111-116
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• 2018

The environmental impacts of a 1 kW polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system are quantitatively assessed by performing a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study. A PEMFC system produces electricity and heat simultaneously, so an appropriate allocation of associated inputs and outputs is performed between the electricity and heat produced. The environmental impacts of the PEMFC system on the impact categories such as global warming (GW), abiotic depletion (AD), acidification (AC), and eutrophication (EU) are assessed from the life cycle impact assessment. The impact indicator results of the impact assessment on these impact categories are obtained as $3.70E-01kg\;CO_2\;eq./kWh$, 1.86E-03 kg Sb eq./kWh, $4.09E-04kg\;SO_2\;eq./kWh$, and $1.88E-05kg\;PO_4{^{3-}}/kWh$, respectively. For all impact categories studied the most influential stage is the operation stage, which accounts for 98.8%, 98.7%, 70.3%, and 62.3% of the total impact on GW, AD, AC, and EU, respectively. For the impact categories of AD, AC, and EU, most of the environmental impacts during the operation stage is attributed to the production of city gas. However, for the impact category of GW, $CO_2$ emission from the reforming process of city gas is the main reason for the largest contribution of the operation stage to the total impact results.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.386-392
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• 2014

The effective water management in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is one of the key strategies for improving cell performance and durability. In this work, an ex situ measurement was carried out to understand the water droplet behavior on the surface of gas diffusion layer (GDL) as a fundamental study for establishing novel water management. For that purpose, simplified cell including one rib and two flow channels was designed and fabricated. Using this ex situ device, the water droplet emergence through the GDL of the PEMFC was emulated to understand liquid water transport through the porous diffusion medium. Through the visualization experiment, the emergence and growth of water droplets at the channel/GDL interface are mainly observed with the surface characteristics of GDL (SGL 10BA, 24BA) and rib when the liquid water passes through the GDL and is expelled to the flow channel. It is expected that the results obtained from this study can contribute to the better understanding on the water droplet behavior (emergence and removal) in the flow channels of PEMFC.