• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.127-136
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• 2023

In this study, the electrochemical performance of a 5-layer fuel cell stack using silica composite membranes as polymer electrolyte membranes was evaluated. It was observed that the flow rate of the fuel gases plays a crucial role in stack performance, particularly being mainly dependent on the flow rate of hydrogen. Increasing the flow rate of oxygen resulted in negligible changes in performance, whereas an increase in the flow rate of hydrogen demonstrated performance improvements. However, this led to an imbalance in the ratio of hydrogen to oxygen flow rates, causing significant degradation in stack performance and durability. A decline in stack performance was also observed over time due to the degradation of stack components. This phenomenon was consistently observed in individual unit cells. Based on these findings, it was emphasized that, in addition to optimizing the performance of each component during stack operation, it is important to optimize design and operating conditions for uniform flow rate control. Lastly, the developed silica composite membrane was assessed to have sufficient performance for application in actual fuel cell systems, exhibiting a performance of over 25 W based on maximum power.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.450-455
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• 2000

For further scaling down of the silicon devices, the application of low dielectric constant materials instead of silicon oxide has been considered to reduce power consumption, crosstalk, and interconnection delay. In this paper, the effect of $O_2/SF_6$ plasma chemistry on the etching characteristics of polyimide-one of the promising low-k interlayer dielectrics-has been studied. The etch rate of polyimide decreases with the addition of $SF_6$ gas due to formation of nonvolatile fluorine compounds inhibiting reaction between oxygen and hydrocarbon polymer, while applying substrate bias enhances etching process through physical attack. However, addition of small amount of $SF_6$ is desirable for etching topography. $SiO_2$ hard mask for polyimide etching is effective under $O_2$plasma etching(selectivity~30), while $O_2/SF_6$ chemistry degrades etching selectivity down to 4. Based on the above results, $1-2\mu\textrm{m}$ L&S PI2610 patterns were successfully etched.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.81-92
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• 2007

Membrane-based separation processes are receiving increasing attention in the scientific community and industry since they provide a desirable alternative to processes that are not easy to achieve by conventional separation technologies. In particular, gas separation using polymeric membranes have annually grown so fast owing to advantages such as easy installation, no moving parts, small footprint and low energy process. The key element is definitely a polymer membrane exhibiting high permeability and high selectivity to compete with other gas separation technologies. Current polymer membranes used for commercial gas separation are a family of hydrocarbon polymers for hydrogen separation, air separation and carbon dioxide separation from natural gas sweetening. Relatively, gas or vapor separation properties of fluoropolymers are not known so much as compared with those of hydrocarbon polymers. Accordingly, in this study, membranes prepared from amorphous perfluoropolymers are of particular interest because of the unique properties of these polymers. The advantages offered by these amorphous perfluoropolymers for use in gas and vapor separation will be discussed. In addition, membrane properties and separation performance will be compared with other membranes available on the market.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.78-87
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• 2015

With aiming to prepare microcapsules having a particle size of $30-50{\mu}m$, thermally expandable capsules with relatively uniform particle sizes consisting of a n-octane/poly(acrylonitrile-co-methyl methacrylate) core/shell structure were synthesized using SPG membrane emulsification and suspension polymerization. Four steric stabilizers and five crosslinking agents were employed. When poly(vinyl alcohol) as a stabilizer was used, the prepared capsules showed a smooth and regular morphology and the liquid hydrocarbon (n-octane) was well encapsulated in the core. When 1,4-butnaediol methacrylate (BDDMA) was used as a crosslinker, the uniform capsules with the average diameter of $36.8{\mu}m$ were synthesized. The capsules prepared with 0.05 mol% BDDMA showed the best encapsulation efficiency.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.378-378
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• 2009

The ionic liquid-based sulfonated hydrocarbon composite membranes was prepared for use in anhydrous high temperature-polymer electrolyte fuel cells (HT-PEFCs). Ionic liquid behaves like water in the composite membranes under anhydrous condition. However the composite membranes show a low conductivity and high gas permeability as the content of ionic liquid increases due to its high viscosity and content of ionic liquid, respectively. Hence, in order to enhance the proton conductivity and to reduce the gas permeability of the composite membranes with low content of ionic liquids, the acid containing a common ion of ionic liquid was added to the composite membranes. The characterization of composite membranes was carried out using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and impedance spectroscopy. As a result, the composite membranes containing acid showed higher proton conductivity than those with no acid under the un-humidified condition due to a decrease in viscosity. In addition, the proton conductivity of composite membranes increased with increasing mole concentration of acid.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.182-188
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• 2017

Sulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) (SPAES)-3-mercaptopropyl silica gel (3MPTSG) composite membranes with improved oxidative stability were prepared for polymer electrolyte fuel cell application. It has been reported that ether part of main chain of aromatic hydrocarbon based membranes were weak to radical attack to decrease membrane durability. In this study, the hydrophilic inorganic particles were introduced by minimizing a decrease in ion conductivity and increasing an oxidative stability. The composite membranes were investigated in terms of ionic conductivity, ion exchange capacity (IEC), FT-IR, TGA and contact angle, etc. As a result, increasing amount of the 3MPTSG resulted in decrease in proton conductivities and water uptakes at 100% R.H. but enhanced thermal and oxidative stabilities.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.121-127
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• 2010

In present work, sulfonated poly(arylene biphenyklsulfone ether) copolymers containing hydroquinone moiety were successfully synthesized using 4,4'-bis[(4-chlorophenyl)sulfonyl]-1,1'-biphenyl(BCPSBP), hydroquinone sulfonic acid potassium salt(sHQ), 4,4'-sulfonyldiphenol and evaluated their characteristics. Three kinds of polymer electrolyte membranes, PBPSEH-HQ00, PBPSEH-HQ10 and PBPSEH-HQ30 were prepared by using mole fraction of sulfonated hydroquinone(sHQ). The structure of the fabricated polymers was analyzed using NMR, IR and GPC. The Mw(weight-average molecular weights) of the polymers were in the range of 62,000-213,000 g $mol^{-1}$, and the molecular weight distribution (Mw/Mn) varied from 1.66-4.04. The thermal analysis of the copolymers was carried out by TGA and DSC. The temperature of Td5% and Td10% was decreased with the mole fraction of sHQ but Tg was increased with the mole fraction. The water uptake, IEC and ion conductivity were increased with increasing the ionic cluster of the polymers. The proton conductivity equal to 9.4 mS $cm^{-1}$ was measured for the PBPSEH-HQ30 membrane at $90^{\circ}C$ and 100% relative humidity. From the observed results it is clear that the prepared hydrocarbon membrane can be considered as suitable polymer electrolyte membrane for the application of PEMFC.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.107-114
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• 2017

The performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) could be deteriorated when fuel contains contaminants such as carbon monoxide (CO) or hydrogen sulfide ($H_2S$). Generally, $H_2S$ is introduced in hydrogen by steam reforming of hydrocarbon which has mercaptan as odorant. $H_2S$ poisoning effect on PEMFC performance was examined on this study. Pure hydrogen injection, voltage cycling and water circulation methods were compared as performance recovery methods. The PEMFC performance was analyzed using electrochemical methods such as polarization curve, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). Pure hydrogen injection and voltage cycling methods showed low recovery ratio, however, water circulation method showed high recovery ratio over 95%. Because anode was directly poisoned by $H_2S$, anode water circulation showed higher recovery ratio compared to the other methods. Water circulation method was developed to recover PEMFC performance from $H_2S$ poisoning. This method could contribute to PEMFC durability and commercialization.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.558-565
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• 2008

Solid oxide fuel cell(SOFC) has a higher fuel flexibility than low temperature fuel cells, such as polymer electrolyte fuel cell(PEMFC) and phosphoric acid fuel cell(PAFC). SOFCs also use CO and $CH_4$ as a fuel, because SOFCs are hot enough to allow the CH4 steam reformation(SR) reaction and water-gas shift(WGS) reaction occur within the SOFC stack itself. Diesel is a good candidate for SOFC system fuel because diesel reformate gas include a higher degree of CO and $CH_4$ concentration than other hydrocarbon(methane, butane, etc.) reformate gas. Selection of catalyst for autothermalr reforming of diesel was performed in this paper, and characteristics of reforming performance between packed-bed and microchannel catalyst are compared for SOFC system. The mesh-typed microchannel catalyst also investigated for diesel ATR operation for 1kW-class SOFC system. 1kW-class diesel microchannel ATR was continuously operated about 30 hours and its reforming efficiency was achieved nearly 55%.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.474-480
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• 2011

Hydrocarbon is required to be converted to pure hydrogen without carbon monooxide (CO) for polymer exchange membran fuel cell (PEMFC) applications. In this paper, CO cleaning processes as the downstream of Dimethyl ehter (DME) autothermal reforming process were performed in micro-reactors. Our study suggested two kinds of water gas shift (WGS) reaction process: High Temperature shift (HTS) - Low Temperature shift (LTS), Middle temperature shift (MTS). Firstly, using perovskite catalyst for MTS was decreased effieiciency since methanation. Using HTS-LTS the CO concentration was decreased about 2% ($N_2$ & $H_2O$ free) with the reaction temperature of $420^{\circ}C$ and $235^{\circ}C$ for HTS and LTS, respectively. As the final stage of CO cleaning process, preferential oxidation (PROX) was applied. The amount of additional oxygen need 2 times of stoichiometric at $65^{\circ}C$. The total conversion reforming efficiency of 75% was gained.