• Plant Journal
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.45-51
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• 2014

This study performs several experiments on a newly developed temperature safety system that can be used for residential building heating systems, the heat source of which is derived from a conventional fuel cell. Prior to this, the hot water made from a fuel cell was not used in residential housing but just went to waste. The present safety system is installed in the current underfloor heating system. At first we used the CFD technique to develop a new heat exchanger. The fuel cell must satisfy the thermal conditions of the inlet temperature being $55^{\circ}C$ and the outlet temperature being $60^{\circ}C$. But variations in weather cause fluctuations in the heating water temperature. The experimental results show our new system capable of maintaining the temperature difference within a ${\pm}0.5^{\circ}C$ range. So we believe that our new PFMFC fuel cell stack array is a good candidate for being used in residential heating systems.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.212-216
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• 2003

The humidification measurement system designed in laboratory was used to measure relative humidity and temperature of reaction gases passing through internal or external humidifier which was used in proton exchange membrane fuel cell test station. The relative humidity of gases was stabilized after $10\~20$ minutes and thus credibility of data could be assured. The effect of relative humidity on fuel cell performance could be analyzed by humidity measurement system. Extreme caution was needed to avoid humidity sensor mal-function or failure which is probable in experiment of high humidity condition near $100\%$. The amount of water carried by gas through humidifier was increased along the flow rate of gas. However, the extent of increase was lowered at high gas flow rate. These phenomena could be analyzed as residence time effect of gas in humidifier.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2017

Electrochemical conversion of $CO_2$ and production of $H_2$ were attempted on a three-dimensionally ordered, porous metal organic framework (MOF-74) in which transition metals (Co, Ni, and Zn) were impregnated. A lab-scale proton exchange membrane-based electrolyzer was fabricated and used for the reduction of $CO_2$. Real-time gas chromatography enabled the instantaneous measurement of the amount of carbon monoxide and hydrogen produced. Comprehensive calculations, based on electrochemical measurements and gaseous product analysis, presented a time-dependent selectivity of the produced gases. M-MOF-74 samples with different central metals were successfully obtained because of the simple synthetic process. It was revealed that Co- and Ni-MOF-74 selectively produce hydrogen gas, while Zn-MOF-74 successfully generates a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The results indicated that M-MOF-74 can be used as an electrocatalyst to selectively convert $CO_2$ into useful chemicals.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.499-504
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• 2009

The effect of gas diffusion layer (GDL) compression caused by different stack clamping pressures on fuel cell performance was experimentally studied in a miniature 5-cell proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack. Three stacks with different GDL compressions, 15%, 35% and 50%, were prepared using SGL 10BC carbon fiber felt GDL and Gore 57 series MEA. The PEMFC stack performance and the stack stability were enhanced with increasing stack clamping pressure resulting in the best performance and stability for the stack with higher GDL compressions up to 50%. The excellent performance of the stack with high GDL compression was mainly due to the reduced contact resistance between GDL and bipolar plate in the stack, while reduced gas permeability of the excessively compressed GDL in the stack hardly affected the stack performance. The high stack clamping pressure also resulted in excessive GDL compression under the rib areas of bipolar plate and large GDL intrusion into the channels of the plate, which reduced the by-pass flow in the channels and increase gas pressure drop in the stack. It seems that these phenomena in the highly compressed stack enhance the water management in the stack and lead to the high stack stability.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.540-544
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• 2013

During start up and shut down of a proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC), the performance and lifetime of PEMFC were reduced. In this study, effect of startup and shutdown were investigated in dead-end type PEMFC using oxygen as a cathode gas with polarization curve, impedance spectroscopy (EIS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Dummy load which eliminates residual hydrogen and oxygen during startup and shutdown operation should be applied to mitigated the degradation of PEMFC performance. At 50% relative humidity (RH) under the repetitive on/off cycling, the cell performance decayed faster than at 100% RH because of corrosion of the cathode carbon support. Water suppling into cell reduced the degradation rate of dead-end type PEMFC during start up and shut down cycling at 50% RH.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.393-404
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• 2014

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been applied to not only military missions like surveillance and reconnaissance but also commercial missions like meteorological observation, aerial photograph, communication relay, internet network build and disaster observation. Fuel cells make UAVs eco-friendly by using hydrogen. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) show low operation temperature, high efficiency, low noise and high energy density and those characterisitcs are well fitted with UAVs. Thus Fuel cell based UAVs have been actively developed in the world. Recently, fuel cell UAVs have started to develope for high altitude UAVs because target altitude of UAVs is expanded upto stratosphere altitude. Long endurance of UAVs is essential to improve effects of the missions. Improvement of UAV endurance time could be fulfilled by developing a hydrogen fuel storage system with high energy density and reducing the weight of UAVs. In this paper, research trend and analysis of fuel cell UAVs are introduced in terms of their altitude and endurance time and then the prospect of fuel cell UAVs are shown.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.50-60
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• 2013

High temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) using phosphoric acid (PA) doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) membranes have been concentrated as one of solutions to the limits with traditional low temperature PEMFCs. However, the amount of reported experimental data is not enough to catch the operational characteristics correlated with cell performance and durability. In this study, design of experiments (DOE) based operational optimization method for high temperature PEMFCs has been proposed. Response surface method (RSM) is very useful to effectively analyze target system's characteristics and to optimize operating conditions for a short time. Thus RSM using central composite design (CCD) as one of methodologies for design of experiments (DOE) was adopted. For this work, the statistic models which predict the performance and degradation rate with respect to the operating conditions have been developed. The developed performance and degradation models exhibit a good agreement with experimental data. Compared to the existing arbitrary operation, the expected cell lifetime and average cell performance during whole operation could be improved by optimizing operating conditions. Furthermore, the proposed optimization method could find different new optimal solutions for operating conditions if the target lifetime of the fuel cell system is changed. It is expected that the proposed method is very useful to find optimal operating conditions and enhance performance and durability for many other types of fuel cell systems.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.46-54
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• 2008

In this paper, a low-cost impedance spectroscopy system(LCISS) suitable for modeling the electrochemical power sources such as fuel cells, batteries and supercapacitors is designed and implemented. Since the developed LCISS is composed of simple sensor circuits, commercial data acquisition board and LabVIEW software, a graphic language with powerful HMI(Human-Machine Interface), it is expected ta be widely used in substitution of the expensive EIS instruments. In the proposed system, the digital lock-in amplifier is adopted to achieve the accurate measurements even in the presence of the high level of noises. The developed hardware and software is applied to measure the impedance spectrum of the Ballard Nexa 1.2kW proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack and an equivalent impedance model is proposed based on the measurement results. The validity of the proposed equivalent circuit and the developed system is proven by the measurement of the ac power losses of the PEM fuel celt stack by the ripple current.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.41-49
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• 2004

The porous media of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is made of deformable materials. The shape of cross sectional area in air plate channels has been changed by structural deformation of the porous media. The uniform mass flow rate and pressure are major factors for safe and efficient operation in the PEMFC. Two kinds of models are provided for the flow analyses. Deformable and undeformable porous media are considered for numerical analysis and experiment of the air plate model. The numerical flow analysis results with deformable and undeformable porous media has some discrepancy in pressure distribution. The pressure differences are measured in order to compare with numerical analysis results. Pressures are measured between inlet and outlet of the air plate. The numerical analysis and experimental results show similar pressure distribution. It is shown that the pressure drops in the two approaches are well matched each other. It is proven that the consideration of structural deformation is required in the numerical analysis/experiment for the PEMFC design.

• Ceramist
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.388-405
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• 2018

In this paper, we review about current development of electrode materials for Li-ion batteries and catalysts for fuel cells. We scrutinized various electrode materials for cathode and anode in Li-ion batteries, which include the materials currently being used in the industry and candidates with high energy density. While layered, spinel, olivine, and rock-salt type inorganic electrode materials were introduced as the cathode materials, the Li metal, graphite, Li-alloying metal, and oxide compound have been discussed for the application to the anode materials. In the development of fuel cell catalysts, the catalyst structures classified according to the catalyst composition and surface structure, such as Pt-based metal nanoparticles, non-Pt catalysts, and carbon-based materials, were discussed in detail. Moreover, various support materials used to maximize the active surface area of fuel cell catalysts were explained. New electrode materials and catalysts with both high electrochemical performance and stability can be developed based on the thorough understanding of earlier studied electrode materials and catalysts.