• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.530-532
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• 2007

This paper presents the design, development and performance of a power conditioning system (PCS) for application to a 250kW Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) generation system. A DSP controller was used to control the dc-dc and dc-ac converter operation for grid connection and power injection to the grid. The controller must also supervise the total PCS operation while communicating with the fuel cell system controller. A control method for parallel operation of dc-dc converters was proposed and verified. A 250kW prototype was successfully built and tested. Experimental performances are compared to minimum target requirements of the PCS for MCFC.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Illuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.154-161
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• 2009

A fuel cell power plant is a very complex system which has various control loops with some non-linearity. For control of a fuel cell power plant, dynamic models of fuel cell stacks have been developed and simplified process flow diagrams of a fuel cell power plant has been presented. Using such a model of a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) power plant, this paper deals with development of an intelligent setpoint reference governor (I-SRG) to find the optimal setpoints and feed forward control inputs for the plant power demand. The I-SRG is implemented with neural network by using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm based on system constraints and performance objectives. The feasibility of the I-SRG is shown through simulation of an MCFC power plant for tracking control of its power demand.

• Clean Technology
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.88-94
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• 2014

During the past decades much attention has been paid to the desulfurization of diesel oil which is important as a source for the fuel cells to prevent the sulfur poisoning of both diesel steam reforming catalyst and electrode of fuel cell. Although alternative desulfurization techniques have been investigated, desulfurization for ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) is still challenged. Therefore, this research focuses on the desulfurization of commercial ULSD for the application to molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC). Herein, the performances of several kinds of commercial adsorbents based on activated carbons, zeolites, and metal oxides for desulfurization of ULSD were screened. The results showed that metal oxides based materials can feasibly reduce sulfur concentration in ULSD to a level of 0.1 ppmw while activated carbons and zeolites did not reach this level at current conditions.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.677-685
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• 2014

A direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) generates electricity directly by converting the chemical energy in coal. In particular, a DCFC system with a solid oxide electrolyte and molten carbonate anode media has been proposed by SRI. In this system, however, there are conflicting effects of temperature, which enhances the ion conductivity of the solid electrolyte and reactivity at the electrodes while causing a stability problem for the anode media. In this study, the effect of temperature on the stability of a carbon-carbonate mixture was investigated experimentally. TGA analysis was conducted under either nitrogen or carbon dioxide ambient for $Li_2CO_3$, $K_2CO_3$, and their mixtures with carbon black. The composition of the exit gas was also monitored during temperature elevation. A simplified reaction model was suggested by considering the decomposition of carbonates and the catalyzed Boudouard reactions. The suggested model could well explain both the measured weight loss of the mixture and the gas formation from it.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.87.2-87.2
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• 2010

The steady and dynamic process model for an internal reforming molten carbonate fuel cell power plant is discussed in this paper. The dominant thermal and chemical dynamic processes are modeled for the stack module and balance-of-plant, including cathode gas preparation, heat recovery, heat loss (Each heat loss amount for the stack and MBOP is obtained from real plant data) and fuel processing. Based on dynamic model and control demand, PID controllers are designed in the whole system. By applying these controllers we can obtain temperature balance of stack and control system depending on changing steam to carbon ratio, air feed amount, and transient condition.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.652-659
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• 1999

The trend of poisoning of reforming catalyst along with the position of anodic catalyst bed was studied. Keeping the conditions that steam to carbon ratio was 2.5, operating voltage was 0.75 V, current density was $140mA/cm^2$, the unit cell was operated during 24 hrs at a steady state. And then the cell was stopped, the catalysts packed in the position of inlet, middle and outlet were sampled individually and then the amount of carbon, Li and K poisoned were analysed. After 100 hrs operated, the catalysts at the same positions were analysed at the same manner. The result of this experiment was as followings. After 24 hrs operated, the poisoning amounts of Li and K in the catalyst were 0.27 wt% at inlet, 0.23 wt% at middle and the highest value 1.59 wt% at outlet. After 100 hrs, the amount of poisoning is the highest in the catalyst packed at the inlet of unit cell. The performance simulation of unit cell explained these trends of poisoning catalysts. The simulation told that the catalyst in the region of the inlet of unit cell treated the 90% of initial methane flow rate and the highest electrochemical reaction happened in this region. So the catalysts of this region were the most poisoned with carbon, Li and K and also the rate of poisoning is faster than that of the catalyst at other regions. The temperature at the region of outlet of unit cell was $30^{\circ}C$ higher than that of other regions, so more Li, and K vaporized than at other regions and little reforming reaction at this region made the catalysts poisoning rate low.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.230-236
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• 2013

In this study, successive coating and co-sintering techniques have been used to fabricate LSM/GDC based cathode supported direct carbon fuel cells. The porous LSM/GDC cathode substrate, dense, thin and crack free GDC and ScSZ layers as bi-layer electrolyte, and a porous Ni/ScSZ anode layer was obtained by co-firing at $1400^{\circ}C$. The porous structure of LSM/GDC cathode substrate, after sintering at $1400^{\circ}C$, was obtained due to the presence of GDC phase, which inhibits sintering of LSM because of its higher sintering temperature. The electrochemical characterization of assembled cell was carried out with air as an oxidant and carbon particles in molten carbonate as fuel. The measured open circuit voltages (OCVs) were obtained to be more than 0.99 V, independent of testing temperature. The peak power densities were 116, 195 and $225mWcm^{-2}$ at 750, 800 and $850^{\circ}C$, respectively.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2015

Hydrogen production from commercial diesel fuels is an attactive option for energy generation purpose due to the low cost and good availability of diesel fuels. However, in order to utilize commercial diesel fuels, the sulfur contents must be removed down to approximately 0.1 ppm level to protect the fuel cell catalysts from poisoning. Commercial catalysts $CoMo/Al_2O_3$ and $NiMo/Al_2O_3$ were tested for HDS (Hydrodesulfurization) of model diesel and commercial diesel. The experimental conditions were $250-400^{\circ}C$ and LHSV (Liquid Hourly Space Velocity) $0.27-2.12hr^{-1}$. $NiMo/Al_2O_3$ was found to be more effective than $CoMo/Al_2O_3$ in removing sulfur from model diesel. Based on the experimental results of model diesel, commercial diesel fuel purchased from a local petrol station was tested for HDS using $NiMo/Al_2O_3$. The GC-SCD (Gas Chromatography Sulfur Chemiluminescence Detector) results showed that the DMDBT (Dimethyldibenzothiophene) derivatives were fully removed from the commercial diesel fuel proving that HDS with $NiMo/Al_2O_3$ is technically feasible for industrial applications.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.131-137
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• 2007

The typical MCFC (molten carbonate fuel cell) anode is made of Ni-10%Cr alloy. The work of this paper is focused concerning long life of anode because Ni-10% Cr anode is suffering from sintering and creep behavior during cell operation. Therefore, Ni-coated Alumina powder($20{\mu}m$) was developed by electroless nickel plating. Optimum condition of electroless nickel coation on $20{\mu}m$ alumina is as follows: pH 11.7, temperature $65{\sim}80^{\circ}C$, powder amount $100cm^2/l$. The deposition rate for Ni-electroless plating was as a function of temperature and activation energy was evaluated by Arrhenius Equation thereby activation energy calculated slope of experimental data as 117.6 kJ/mol, frequency factor(A) was $6.28{\times}10^{18}hr^{-1}$, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.124-131
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• 2006

For commercialization of molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC), it has some problems to be overcome such as decrease of porosity and thickness of the anode under the operating condition (at $650^{\circ}C$ and working pressure of more than 2 $kg_f/cm^2$). Recently, Ni-Al alloy anode has been proposed to replace the conventional Ni-Cr anode as an alternative material to resist a creep and inhibit the sintering. The objective of this research is to sinter the green sheet of Ni-Al alloy anode during single cell pre-treatment process, which has several advantages like cost down and simplification of manufacturing process. However, the Ni-Al alloy anode prepared with a conventional pre-treatment process showed the phase separation of Ni-Al alloy and formation of micropore(${\leqq}0.4{\mu}m$), resulting in low creep resistance and high electrolyte re-distribution. In order to prevent the Ni-Al alloy anode from phase-separating, nitrogen gas was used in the process of pre-treatment. Introducing the nitrogen, the phase separation from Ni-Al alloy into nickel and alumina was minimized and increased creep resistance. However, there was some micropore formation on the surface of Ni-Al alloy anode during the cell operation due to creation of lithium aluminate. Addition of more amount of electrolyte into a cell, especially at cathode, made the cell performance stable for 2,000 hrs. Consequently, it was possible to make the Ni-Al alloy anode with good creep resistance by the modified in-situ sintering technique.