• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.343-350
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• 2012

A planar solid oxide fuel cell (PSOFC) is studied in its application in a high-temperature stationary power plant. Even though PSOFCs with external reformers are designed for application from the distributed power source to the central power plant, such PSOFCs may sacrifice more system efficiency than internally reformed SOFCs. In this study, modeling of the PSOFC with an external reformer was developed to analyze the feasibility of thermal energy utilization for the external reformer. The PSOFC system model includes the stack, reformer, burner, heat exchanger, blower, pump, PID controller, 3-way valve, reactor, mixer, and steam separator. The model was developed under the Matlab/Simulink environment with Thermolib$^{(R)}$ modules. The model was used to study the system performance according to its configuration. Three configurations of the SOFC system were selected for the comparison of the system performance. The system configuration considered the cathode recirculation, thermal sources for the external reformer, heat-up of operating gases, and condensate anode off-gas for the enhancement of the fuel concentration. The simulation results show that the magnitude of the electric efficiency of the PSOFC system for Case 2 is 12.13% higher than that for Case 1 (reference case), and the thermal efficiency of the PSOFC system for Case 3 is 76.12%, which is the highest of all the cases investigated.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.21-26
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• 2011

Ni-YSZ (Yttria Stabilized Zirconia) composite powders were fabricated by glycine nitrate process. The prepared powders were sintered at $1300{\sim}1400^{\circ}C$ for 4 h in air and reduced at $1000^{\circ}C$ for 2 h in a nitrogen and hydrogen atmosphere. The microstructure, electrical conductivity, thermal expansion and mechanical properties of the Ni-YSZ cermets have been investigated with respect to the volume contents of Ni. A porous microstructure consisting of homogeneously distributed Ni and YSZ phases together with well-connected grains was observed. It was found that the open porosity, electrical conductivity, thermal expansion and bending strength of the cermets are sensitive to the volume content of Ni. The Ni-YSZ cermet containing 40 vol% Ni was ascertained to be the optimum composition. This composition offers sufficient open porosity of more than 30 %, superior electrical conductivities of 917.4 S/cm at $1000^{\circ}C$ and a moderate average thermal expansion coefficient of $12.6{\times}10^{-6}^{\circ}C^{-1}$ between room temperature and $1000^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.359-366
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to investigate the properties of LSGM electrolyte and LSM cathode. The unit cell based on the optimum conditions and processing for high performance was fabricated and measured. The single phase of $LaGaO_3$ was obtained on sintering at $1500^{\circ}$ for 6h with composition of $(La_{0.85}Sr_{0.15})(Ga_{0.8}Mg_{0.2})O_{3-\delta}와 (La_{0.8}Sr_{0.2})(Ga_{0.8}Mg_{0.2})O_{3-\delta}$ and $(La_{0.85}Sr_{0.15})(Ga_{0.8}Mg_{0.2})O_{3-\delta}$. The grain size of the sintered body was about $10∼30{\mu}m$ and electrical conductivity was 0.13 S/cm measured at $800^{\circ}$. The single phase of $LaMnO_3$ structure in $(La1-xSrx)MnO_3$ system was obtained at x=0∼0.2 and the particle size of the synthesized powder was about 40 nm. The unit cell was prepared by firing at $1200^{\circ}$ for 1h with $(La_{0.9}Sr_{0.1})MnO_3$ cathode and 0.9NiO-0.1YSZ anode screen-printed on surfaces of $(La_{0.8}Sr_{0.2})(Ga_{0.8}Mg_{0.2})O_{3-\delta}$ electrolyte. The grain size of the electrode was close to $1{\mu}m$ and the electrode had porous structure. The maximum power density of unit cell showed $0.3W/cm^2$ at $800^{\circ}$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.41 no.10
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• pp.667-673
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• 2017

We investigated the temperature uniformity in an anode-supported solid oxide fuel cell, using the open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) toolbox, OpenFOAM. Numerical simulation was performed in three different flow paths, i.e., co-flow, counter-flow, and cross-flow paths. Gas flow in a porous electrode was calculated using effective diffusivity while considering the effect of interconnect rib. A lumped internal resistance model derived from a semi-empirical correlation was implemented for the calculation of electrochemical reaction. The result showed that the counter-flow path displayed the most uniform temperature distribution.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.773-776
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• 2009

In this paper, new concept of the diesel fuel processing is introduced for the stable operation of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Heavier hydrocarbons than $CH_4$, such as ethylene, ethane, propane, and etc., induce the carbon deposition on anode of SOFCs. In the reformate of heavy hydrocarbons (diesel, gasoline, kerosene, and JP-8), concentration of ethylene is usually higher than low hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane, and butane. So, removal of low hydrocarbons (over C1-hydrocarbons), especially ethylene, at the reformate gases is important for stable operation of SOFCs. New methodology as named "post-reformer" is introduced for removing the low hydrocarbons at the reformate gas stream. Catalyst of the NECS-PR4 is selected for post-reforming catalyst because the catalyst of NECS-PR4 shows the high selectivity for removing low hydrocarbons and achieving the high reforming efficiency. The diesel reformer and post-reformer are continuously operated for about 200 hours as integrated mode. The reforming performance is not degraded and low hydrocarbons in the diesel reformate are completely removed.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.121-124
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• 2007

Stacks of solid oxide fuel cell under 1kW max power were designed on planar type employing anode supported cell and metallic interconnects. The stacks composed of 3-cells, 8-cells, and 16-cells were fabricated by using single cell purchased from Indec, sealant and interconnect prepared at RIST. In performance test of the final 16-cells stacks, OCV was recorded to be 16.7 V. Peak power and power density were 1 kW, 0.77 $W/cm^{2}$ at $820^{\circ}C$, respectively. In addition, the long term degradation rate of the power exhibited 2.25 % in 500 h at $750^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.1-8
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• 2018

A fuel cell is an energy conversion device that converts a chemical energy directly into an electrical energy and has higher energy efficiency than an internal combustion engine, but solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) consisting of brittle ceramic material remains as a major issue regarding the mechanical properties as the crack formation and propagation. In this study, the stress distribution and crack behavior around the crack tip were evaluated, due to investigated the effects of the surface crack at the operating condition of high temperature. As a result, the difference of the generated stress was insignificant at operating conditions of high temperature according to the surface crack length changes. This is because, the high stiffness interconnect has a closed structure to suppress cell deformation about thermal expansion. The stress intensity factor ratio $K_{II}/K_I$ increased as the crack depth increased, at that time the effect of $K_{II}$ is larger than that of $K_I$. Also the maximum stress intensity factor increased as the crack depth increased, but the location of crack was generated at the electrolyte/anode interface, not at the crack tip.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.44 no.8
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• pp.407-411
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• 2007

A 3-cell stacked anode-supported solid oxide fuel cell was designed and fabricated to achieve a complete gas seal and the facile stacking of components. The stack was assembled with a unit cell with $10{\times}10cm^2$ area, and each cell was interconnected by a stainless steel 430 separator using a proprietary sealant sheet. The stack performance was examined at various gas flow rates of $H_2+3.5vol%\;H_2O$, and air at a fixed temperature of $800^{\circ}C$. No gas leakage was found from the sealing between cells and inter-connects within a measurement system in this research during a prolonged time of 500 h in operation. The test resulted in an open circuit voltage of 3.12 V, a peak power of 149 W, and a power density of $0.61W/cm^2$, while the long term durability of the power showed 19.1% degradation during the prolonged time of 500 h when tested at $800^{\circ}C$.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.84.1-84.1
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• 2011

Typical solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have limited applications because they operate at high temperature due to low ionic conductivity of electrolyte. Thin film solid oxide fuel cell with yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte is developed to decrease operating temperature. Pt/YSZ/Pt thin film SOFC was fabricated on anodic aluminum oxide (AAO). The crystalline structure of YSZ electrolyte by sputter is heavily depends on the roughness of porous Pt layer, which results in pinholes. To deposit YSZ electrolyte without pinholes and electrical shortage, it is necessary to deposit smoother and denser layer between Pt anode layer and YSZ layer by sputter. Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) technique is used to deposit pre-YSZ layer, and it improved electrolyte quality. 300nm thick Bi-layered YSZ electrolyte was successfully deposited without electrical shortage.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.58-64
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• 2001

YSZ ($8mol\%$ yttria-stabilized zirconia)-modified LSM $(La_{0.85}Sr_{0.15}MnO_3)$ composite cathodes were fabricated by formation of YSZ film on triple phase boundary (TPB) of LSM/YSZ/gas. The YSZ coating film greatly enlarged electrochemical reaction sites from the increase of additional TPB. The composite cathode was formed on thin YSZ electrolyte (about 30 Um thickness) supported on an anode and then I-V characterization and AC impedance analyses were performed at temperature between $700^{\circ}C\;and\;800^{\circ}C$. As results of the impedance analysis on the cell at $800^{\circ}C$ with humidified hydrogen as the fuel and air as the oxidant, R1 around the frequency of 1000 Hz represents the anode Polarization. R2 around the frequency of 100Hz indicates the cathode polarization, and R3 below the frequency of 10 Hz is the resistance of gas phase diffusion through the anode. The cell with the composite cathode produced power density of $0.55\;W/cm^2\;and\;1W/cm^2$ at air and oxygen atmosphere, respectively. The I-V curve could be divided into two parts showing distinctive behavior. At low current density region (part I) the performance decreased steeply and at high current density region (part II) the performance decreased gradually. At the part I the performance decrease was especially resulted from the large cathode polarization, while at the part H the performance decrease related to the electrolyte polarization.