• Current Industrial and Technological Trends in Aerospace
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.95-105
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• 2009

Fuel cells are applied to the propulsion system of aircraft based on environmental-friendly characteristics with low noise and zero emission of CO2, currently many kinds of UAV and small manned aircraft equipped with fuel cells are being developed. Fuel cells for aircraft typically classified into PEMFC(Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) type and SOFC(Solid Oxide Fuel Cell) type and the system is developed to adapt missions and operational conditions of aircraft. For UAV, various types of aircraft mostly based on PEM fuel cell technology are investigated for military or commercial uses, and the stability and endurance of system will be improved. For small manned aircraft, many researches are carried out to substitute the propulsion system by fuel cell, also some developments for the higher performance of APU of large commercial aircraft to apply fuel cells are in progress. In the future, a fuel cell aircraft will be expected to improve the reliability and efficiency with higher power density.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.761-769
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• 2007

The configuration of the flow channel on a bipolar plate of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) for efficient reactant supply has great influence on the performance of the fuel cell. Recent demand for higher energy density fuel cells requires an increase in current density at mid voltage range and a decrease in concentration overvoltage at high current density. Therefore, an interdigitated flow channel where mass transfer rate by convection through a gas diffusion layer is greater than the mass transfer by a diffusion mechanism through a gas diffusion layer was recently proposed. This study attempts to analyze the i-V performance, mass transfer and pressure drop in interdigitated flow channels by developing a fully three dimensional simulation model for PEMFC that can deal with anode and cathode flow together. The results indicate that the trade off between performance and pressure loss should be considered for efficient design of flow channels. Although the performance of the fuel cell with interdigitated flow is better than that with conventional flow channels due to a strong mass transfer rate by convection across a gas diffusion layer, there is also an increase in friction due to the strong convection through the porous diffusion layer accompanied by a larger pressure drop along the flow channel. It was evident that the proper selection of the ratio of channel and rib width under counter flow conditions in the fuel cell with interdigitated flow are necessary to optimize the interdigitated flow field design.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.13 no.1 s.38
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• pp.57-61
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• 2006

Fuel cells are direct current (DC) power generators. They generate electricity through an electrochemical process that converts the energy stored in a fuel directly into electricity. Fuel cells have many benefits, which produce no particulate matter, nitrogen or sulfur oxides. And they have few moving parts and produce little or no noise. When fueled by hydrogen, they yield only heat and water as byproducts. Their wide application can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign sources of petroleum. This paper is studied on a high efficiency power conditioning system (PCS) applied to the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) generation system. This paper is designed to a novel PCS circuit topology of high efficiency. Some experimental results of the proposed PCS is confirmed to the validity of the analytical results.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.3475-3481
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• 2014

This paper describes how primary contaminants in ambient air affect the performance of the cathode in fuel cell electric vehicle applications. The effect of four atmospheric pollutants ($SO_2$, $NH_3$, $NO_2$, and CO) on cathode performance was investigated by air impurity injection and recovery test under load. Electrochemical analysis via polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was performed for various concentrations of contaminants during the impurity test in order to determine the origins of performance decay. The variation in cell voltage derived empirically in this study and data reported in the literature were normalized and juxtaposed to elucidate the relationship between impurity concentration and performance. Mechanisms of cathode degradation by air impurities were discussed in light of the findings.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.659-666
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• 2019

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) generate electricity by electrochemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen. PEMFCs are expected to alternate electric power generator using fossil fuels with various advantages of high power density, low operating temperature, and environmental-friendly products. PEMFCs have widely been used in a number of applications such as fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) and stationary fuel cell systems. However, there are remaining technical issues, particularly the long-term durability of each part of fuel cells. Degradation of a carbon supported-platinum catalyst in the anode and cathode follows various mechanistic origins in different fuel cell operating conditions, and thus accelerated stress test (AST) is suggested to evaluate the durability of electrocatalyst. In this article, comparable protocols of the AST durability test are intensively explained.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.469-475
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• 2008

In this paper, control of small PEM(Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell stack by a microprocessor is introduced. The water management of fuel cell stack inside, a key technique in fuel cell control, can be achieved by adjusting the required air flow for fuel and cooling, and by purging the excessive water from the stack. It is very important to precisely control the BOS(Balance of Stack) since the stable operation of the fuel cell system mainly depends on it. In this study the fuel efficiency of the system is improved by the control of the system based on the measured air flow and purge cycle during the optimal operation and its effectiveness is proved by the experiments. The operating stability of the system is improved by the developed controller using a microprocessor and it is expected to be widely used for the control of small PEM fuel cell stack.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.170-177
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• 2006

Optimum design of flow channel in the separation plate of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell is very prerequisite to reduce concentration over potential at high current region and remove the water generated in cathode effectively. In this paper, fully 3 dimensional computational model which solves anode and cathode flow fields simultaneously is developed in order to compare the performance of fuel cell with parallel and interdigitated flow channels. Oxygen and water concentration and pressure drop are calculated and i-V performance characteristics are compared between flows with two flow channels. Results show that performance of fuel cell with interdigitated flow channel is hi민or than that with parallel flow channel at high current region because hydrogen and oxygen in interdigitated flow channel are transported to catalyst layer effectively due to strong convective transport through gas diffusion layer but pressure drop is larger than that in parallel flow channel. Therefore Trade-off between power gain and pressure loss should be considered in design of fuel cell with interdigitated flow channel.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.43-50
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• 2013

The stringent emission regulation and future shortage of fossil fuel motivate the research of alternative powertrain. In this study, a system of proton exchange membrane fuel cell has been modeled to analyze the performance of the fuel cell system for automotive application. The model is composed of the fuel cell stack, air compressor, humidifier, and intercooler, and hydrogen supply which are implemented by using the Matlab/Simulink(R). Fuel cell stack model is empirical model but the water transport model is included so that the system performance can be predicted over various humidity conditions. On the other hand, the model of air compressor is composed of motor, static air compressor, and some manifolds so that the motor dynamics and manifold dynamics can be investigated. Since the model is concentrated on the strategic operation of compressor to reduce the power consumption, other balance of components (BOP) are modeled to be static components. Since the air compressor model is empirical model which is based on curve fitting of experiments, the stack model is validated with the commercial software and the experiments. The dynamics of air compressor is investigated over unit change of system load. The results shows that the power consumption of air compressor is about 12% to 25% of stack gross power and dynamic response should be reduced to optimize the system operation.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.670-676
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• 2016

Hydrogen town in Republic of Korea was established in 2013. Hydrogen as a byproduct produced by various processes of factories is used in hydrogen town facilities. As cell performance is affected by contaminations in fuel gas, various standards about impurities of fuel have been determined by many countries. This study shows performance degradation of single cell with impurities concentrations. Traces of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen sulfide ($H_2S$)can cause considerable cell performance losses. For comparing the performances by poisoning of CO, acceleration test, I-V curve, constant current are performed. Both the CO and $H_2S$ poisoning rate are a function of their concentration. With the higher concentrations the higher poisoning rates are observed. And, it was confirmed that, oxidation behavior and side reaction generation are not affected. Under the lower $H_2S$ concentration condition, the poisoning rate is much higher than that of CO because of its different adsorption intensity. It can be possible that the result of this study can be used for enacting regulation as a baseline data.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.22 no.10
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• pp.41-48
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• 2008

This paper proposes a three-phase Z-source dynamic voltage restorer (Z-DVR) to mitigate the voltage sag for the critical loads. The proposed system is composed of passive filter and Z-source topology inverter. As an ESS(Energy Storage System) of the proposed system is employed the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC). To calculate and control the harmonics and compensation voltage, $i_{d}-i_{q}$ theory in dq rotating reference frame and PI controller are used. In case that three-phase voltage sags occurred, a PSIM simulation was done for the performance comparison of the conventional method employed battery stacks and proposed method. As a result, considering the voltage compensation performance, each method was nearly similar. Also, the compensation performance and the %THD(%Total Harmonic Distortion) result under the various source voltage conditions (sag or swell) were presented and discussed to show the performance of the proposed system.