• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.147-151
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• 2007

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with relatively high aspect ratio active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compression conditions. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds to that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.471-480
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• 2017

A proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) operated at $150^{\circ}C$ was evaluated by a controlling different amount of phosphoric acid (PA) to a membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) without humidification of the cells. The effects on MEA performance of the amount of PA in the cathode are investigated. The PA content in the cathodes was optimized for higher catalyst utilization. The highest value of the active electrochemical area is achieved with the optimum amount of PA in the cathode confirmed by in-situ cyclic voltammetry. The current density-voltage experiments (I-V curve) also shows a transient response of cell voltage affected by the amount of PA in the electrodes. Furthermore, this information was compared with the production variables such as hot pressing and vacuum drying to investigate those effect to the electrochemical performances.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.293-299
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• 2012

The serpentine flow channel is widely used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to prevent flooding phenomena because it effectively removes liquid water in the flow channel. The pressure drop between inlet and outlet increases as compared with straight channels due to minor losses associated with the corners of the turning configurations. This results in a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions, where some amount of reactant gas can be delivered to catalyst layers by convection through a gas diffusion layer (GDL). The enhancement of the convective flow in the GDL, so-called bypass flow, affects fuel cell performance since the bypass flow influences the reactant transport and thus its concentration over the active area. In the present paper, for the bipolar plate design, a simple analytic model has been proposed to predict the bypass flow in the serpentine type flow channels and validated with three-dimensional numerical simulation results.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.1520-1521
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• 2007

고분자 전해질 연료전지(PEMFC, polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell)는 수소이온특성을 갖는 고분자막을 전해질로 사용하는 연료전지로서 무공해 차량의 동력원, 가정용 발전, 우주선용 전원, 군사용 전원 등 매우 다양한 부분에서 사용되어질 것으로 사료된다. 하지만 현재 높은 가격과 짧은 수명 등의 문제로 상용화에 이르지 못하고 있다. 고분자전해질 연료전지의 스택 가격을 부품별로 조사하여 보면 분리판이 전체 스택가격의 60% 정도가 가장 높은 비중을 차지하며 기체 확산층으로 사용되는 탄소재료가 12%,전해질이 10%, 촉매가 8% 정도를 차지한다. 촉매 또한 저가의 비귀금속 촉매를 개발하거나 백금 촉매의 성능을 향상시켜 촉매 사용량을 낮춤으로써 가격을 낮추기 위한 연구가 진행되어지고 있으며 전해질로 사용하는 고분자막도 가격이 매우 높은 Nafion 대신 저가 고분자를 개발하거나, 또는 가능한 얇은 전해질을 사용하기 위한 노력이 이루어지고 있다. 하지만 아직까지는 뚜렷한 진척성과가 없는 것으로 알려져 있다. 그래서 본 연구에서는 고분자 전해질 연료전지의 고분자 Membrane의 특성을 향상시키고 또한 박막의 배양성과 특성에 대해서 고찰해 보고자한다.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.517-522
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• 2023

A chemical/mechanical durability test of polymer membrane evaluation method is used in which air and hydrogen are supplied to the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and wet/dry is repeated in the open circuit voltage (OCV) state. In this protocol, when wet/dry is repeated, voltage increase/decrease is repeated, resulting in electrode degradation. When the membrane durability is excellent, the number of voltage changes increases and the evaluation is terminated due to electrode degradation, which may cause a problem that the original purpose of membrane durability evaluation cannot be performed. In this study, the same protocol as the department of energy (DOE) was used, but oxygen was used instead of air as the cathode gas, and the wet/dry time and flow rate were also increased to increase the chemical/mechanical degradation rate of the membrane, thereby shortening the durability evaluation time of the membrane to improve these problems. The durability test of the Nafion 211 membrane electrode assembly (MEA) was completed after 2,300 cycles by increasing the acceleration by 2.6 times using oxygen instead of air. This protocol also accelerated degradation of the membrane and accelerated degradation of the electrode catalyst, which also had the advantage of simultaneously evaluating the durability of the membrane and the electrode.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.527-535
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• 2017

Heat management is one of the most critical issues in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) installed inside the fuel cell power pack of a fuel cell battery hybrid UPS. If the heat generated by the chemical reaction in the fuel cell is not rapidly removed, the durability and performance of the fuel cell may be affected, which may shorten its lifetime. Therefore, the objective of this study is to select and propose a proper cooling method for the fuel cells used in the fuel cell power pack of a UPS. In order to find the most appropriate cooling method, the various design factors affecting the cooling performance were studied. The numerical analysis was performed by a commercial program, i.e., COMSOL Multiphysics. Firstly, the surface temperature of the 1 kW class fuel cell stack with the cooling fans placed at the top was compared with the one with the cooling fans placed at the bottom. Various rotation speeds of the cooling fan, viz. 2,500, 3,000, 3,500, and 4,000 RPM, were tested to determine the proper cooling fan speed. In addition, the influence of the inhaled air flow rate was investigated by changing the porous area of the grille, which is the entrance of the air flowing from the outside to the inside of the power pack. As a result, it was found that for the operating conditions of the 1 kW class PEMFC to be acceptable, the cooling fan was required to have a minimum rotating speed of 3500 RPM to maintain the fuel cell surface temperature within an acceptable range. The results of this study can be effectively applied to the development of thermal management technology for the fuel cells inside the fuel cell power pack of a UPS.

• Carbon letters
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.38-40
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• 2010

Carbon supported electrocatalysts are commonly used as electrode materials for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs). These kinds of electrocatalysts provide large surface area and sufficient electrical conductivity. The support of typical PEM fuel cell catalysts has been a traditional conductive type of carbon black. However, even though the carbon particles conduct electrons, there is still significant portion of Pt that is isolated from the external circuit and the PEM, resulting in a low Pt utilization. Herein, new types of carbon materials to effectively utilize the Pt catalyst are being evaluated. Carbon nanofiber/activated carbon fiber (CNF/ACF) composite with multifunctional surfaces were prepared through catalytic growth of CNFs on ACFs. Nickel nitrate was used as a precursor of the catalyst to synthesize carbon nanofibers(CNFs). CNFs were synthesized by pyrolysising $CH_4$ using catalysts dispersed in acetone and ACF(activated carbon fiber). The as-prepared samples were characterized with transmission electron microscopy(TEM), scanning electron microscopy(SEM). In TEM image, carbon nanofibers were synthesized on the ACF to form a three-dimensional network. Pt/CNF/ACF was employed as a catalyst for PEMFC. As the ratio of prepared catalyst to commercial catalyst was changed from 0 to 50%, the performance of the mixture of 30 wt% of Pt/CNF/ACF and 70wt% of Pt/C commercial catalyst showed better perfromance than that of 100% commercial catalyst. The unique structure of CNF can supply the significant site for the stabilization of Pt particles. CNF/ACF is expected to be promising support to improve the performance in PEMFC.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.8 no.2 s.23
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• pp.15-27
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to improve the performance of Polymer electrolyte fuel cell(PEMFC) by studying the channel dimension of bipolar plates using commercial CFD program 'Fluent'. Simulations are done ranging from 0.5 to 3.0mm for different size in order to find the channel size which shoves the highst hydrogen consumption. The results showed that the smaller channel width, land width, channel depth, the higher hydrogen consumption in anode. When channel width is increased, the pressure drop in channel is decreased because total channel length Is decreased, and when land width is increased, the net hydrogen consumption is decreased because hydrogen is diffused under the land width. It is also found that the influence of hydrogen consumption is larger at different channel width than it at different land width. The change of hydrogen consumption with different channel depth isn't as large as it with different channel width, but channel depth has to be small as can as it does because it has influence on the volume of bipolar plates. however the hydrogen utilization among the channel sizes more than 1.0mm which can be machined in reality is the most at channel width 1.0, land width 1.0, channel depth 0.5mm and considered as optimum channel size. The fuel cell combined with 2cm${\times}$2cm diagonal or serpentine type flow field and MEA(Membrane Electrode Assembly) is tested using 100W PEMFC test station to confirm that the channel size studied in simulation. The results showed that diagonal and serpentine flow field have similarly high OCV and current density of diagonal (low field is higher($2-40mA/m^2$) than that of serpentine flow field under 0.6 voltage, but the current density of serpentine type has higher performance($5-10mA/m^2$) than that of diagonal flow field under 0.7-0.8 voltage.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.32-39
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• 2024

The key components of a Phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) are an electrode catalyst, an electrolyte matrix and a gas diffusion layer (GDL). In this study, we introduced a microporous layer on the GDL of PAFC to enhance liquid electrolyte management and overall electrochemical performance of PAFC. MPL is primarily used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells to serve as an intermediate buffer layer, effectively managing water within the electrode and reducing contact resistance. In this study, electrodes were fabricated using GDLs with and without MPL to examine the influence of MPL on the performance of PAFC. Internal resistance and polarization curves of the unit cell were measured and compared to each other to assess the impact of MPL on PAFC electrode performance. As the results, the application of MPL improved power density from 170.2 to 192.1 mW/cm². MPL effectively managed electrolyte and water within the matrix and electrode, enhancing stability. Furthermore, the application of MPL reduced internal resistance in the electrode, resulting in sustained and stable performance even during long-term operation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.185-189
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• 2010

This study considered the feasibility of controlling the air concentration by oscillating flow in fuel cell channels. The fuel cell stack performance is largely influenced by the air concentration. If the air concentration is lower than 2.5 times the stoichiometric of the inlet air, the fuel cell stack performance seriously deteriorates because of air starvation. In this respect, optimizing the air concentration is crucially important to maximizing the fuel cell stack performance. In this work, the effects of oscillating actuation were studied to control the concentration. Studies have shown that there are two non-dimensional key parameters related to the frequency and oscillating amplitude. This paper presents how those parameters affect the performance of the stack.