• Proceeding of Spring/Autumn Annual Conference of KHA
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.315-318
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• 2005

One of the problems in using renewable energy sources is great difficulty of stable and sustainable supply. Because the fuel cell can provide stable and sustainable supply of energy sources without regard to external conditions, however, it will become one of the most useful renewable energy sources for buildings that need stable energy supply. For practical application of PEMFC system to common household, the data of household energy consumption are analyzed by electricity, cooking and heating. From the result of the data analysis, practical application methods of PEMFC system to household are designed to several models. The aim of this study is to establish a plan of practical application for applying Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell(PEMFC) system to the households.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.427-441
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• 2022

Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) serving as a separator that can prevent the permeation of unreacted fuels as well as an electrolyte that selectively transports protons from the anode to the cathode has been considered a key component of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The perfluorinated sulfonic acid-based PEMs, represented by Nafion®, have been commercialized in PEMFC systems due to their high proton conductivity and chemical stability. Nevertheless, these PEMs have several inherent drawbacks including high manufacturing costs by the complex synthetic processes and environmental problems caused by producing the toxic gases. Although numerous studies are underway to address these drawbacks including the development of sulfonated hydrocarbon polymer-based PEMs (SHP-PEMs), which can easily control the polymer structures, further improvement of PEM performances and durability is necessary for practical PEMFC applications. Therefore, this study focused on the various strategies for the development of SHP-PEMs with outstanding performance and durability by 1) introducing cross-linked structures, 2) incorporating organic/inorganic composites, and 3) fabricating reinforced-composite membranes using porous substrates.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.49-56
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• 2023

The Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) operates at ambient temperature as a low-temperature fuel cell. During its operation, voltage losses arise due to factors such as operating conditions and material properties, effecting its performance. Computational simulations of fuel cells can be categorized into 1D simulation and CFD, chosen based on their specific application purposes. In this study, we carried out an analysis validation using 1D geometry and compared its performance with the results from 2D geometry analysis. CFD allows for the representation of pressure, velocity distribution, and fuel mass fraction according to the geometry, enabling the analysis of current density. However, the 1D simulation, simplifying governing equations to reduce time cost, failed to accurately account for fuel distribution and changes in fuel concentration due to fuel cell operations. As a result, it showed unrealistic results in the cell voltage region dominated by concentration loss compared to CFD.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.715-720
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• 2010

We propose an electroosmosis-based air delivery scheme for polymer electrolyte fuel cells and experimentally investigate its feasibility. An electroosmotic pump under a low-frequency AC electric field is used to displace initially a volume of pump working liquids. This working liquid is then pumped into a space enclosed by a flexible membrane and the movement of the membrane delivers air to a fuel cell. We successfully demonstrated the operation of a forced-convection fuel cell using this technique. In this preliminary study, however, the power consumption of the pump exceeds the power generated by the fuel cell. We conclude this paper with a discussion of several ways to reduce the pump-to-fuel cell power ratio.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.7 no.7
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• pp.867-872
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• 2006

Fuel cells are devices that convert chemical energy directly into electrical energy. Owing to the high efficiency of the fuel cells, a large number of research work have been done during these years. Among many kinds of the fuel cells, a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell is such kind of thing which works under low temperature. Because of the specialty, it stimulated intense global R&D competition. Most of the major world automakers are racing to develop polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell passenger vehicles. Unfortunately, there are still many problems to be solved in order to make them into the commercial use, such as the thermal and water management in working process of PEMFCs. To solve the difficulites facing the researcher, the analysis of the inner mechanism of PEMFC should be implemented as much as possible and mathematical modeling is an important tool for the research of the fuel cell especially with the combination of experiment. By regarding some of the assumptions and simplifications, using the finite element technique, a two-dimensional electrochemical mode is presented in this paper for the further comparison with experimental data. Based on the principals of the problem, the equations of electronic charge conservation equation, gas-phase continuity equation, and mass balance equation are used in calculating. Finally, modeling results indicate some of the phenomenon in a unit cell, and the relationships between potential and current density.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.109-112
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• 2007

In this paper, a mathematical modeling was developed to simulate 1kW class air cooled Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell(PEMFC) system. The proposed modeling was conducted under SIMULINK based environment. The model ing was developed based on the thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium. The objective is to design and implement the entire fuel cell system model ing including the system controller modeling. The fuel cell process and the control system modeling should have to be connected with each other simultaneously， therefore the two types of modeling influences each other when the system simulator run. The fuel cell modeling libraries are simulated using the SIMULINK under the thermodynamic and chemical equilibrium base. The PID controller application was designed and developed to test the process modeling and verify it. This the prototype development of the fuel cell system to design and test more complicate fuel cell systems, like the residential power generation system. The simulation results was compared to the real PEMFC system performance. We have achieved the reasonable accordance with the Lab test and the simulation results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.75-80
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• 2005

An experimental study is carried out to investigate the performance and the efficiency humidifying Membrane Electrolyte Assembly and having the double-tied catalyst layers in a fuel cell system which is taken into account the physical and thermal concept. Subsequently, an electric output produced by PEMFC(Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell) is measured to assess the performance of a stack, and the efficiency is also evaluated according to the different situation in which unit cell is placed with and without the humidification of the MEA. It is found that the measured values of stack voltage and current are influenced by the stack temperature, humidification, and the double-tied catalyst layers which give more enhanced values to be applied to electric units.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 2015

Perfluorinated sulfonic acid ionomers (PFSAs) have been widely as solid electrolyte materials for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, since they exhibit excellent chemical durability under their harsh application conditions as well as good proton conductivity. Even PFSA materials, however, suffer from physical failures associated with repeated membrane swelling and deswelling, resulting in fairly reduced electrochemical lifetime. In this study, pore-filling membranes are prepared by impregnating a Nafion ionomer into the pore of a porous PTFE support film and their fundamental characteristics are evaluated. The developed pore-filling membranes exhibit extremely high proton conductivity of about $0.5S\;cm^{-1}@90^{\circ}C$ in liquid water.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.292-303
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• 2022

An eco-friendly energy conversion device without the emission of pollutants has gained much attention due to the rapid use of fossil fuels inducing carbon dioxide emissions ever since the first industrial revolution in the 18th century. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) that can produce water during the reaction without the emission of carbon dioxide are promising devices for automotive and residential applications. As a key component of PEMFCs, polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) need to have high proton conductivity and physicochemical stability during the operation. Currently, perfluorinated sulfonic acid-based PEMs (PFSA-PEMs) have been commercialized and utilized in PEMFC systems. Although the PFSA-PEMs are found to meet these criteria, there is an ongoing need to improve these further, to be useful in practical PEMFC operation. In addition, the well-known drawbacks of PFSA-PEMs including low glass transition temperature and high gas crossover need to be improved. Therefore, this review focused on recent trends in the development of high-performance PFSA-PEMs in three different ways. First, control of the side chain of PFSA copolymers can effectively improve the proton conductivity and thermal stability by increasing the ion exchange capacity and polymer crystallinity. Second, the development of composite-type PFSA-PEMs is an effective way to improve proton conductivity and physical stability by incorporating organic/inorganic additives. Finally, the incorporation of porous substrates is also a promising way to develop a thin pore-filling membrane showing low membrane resistance and outstanding durability.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2009

The sulfonated poly(styrene-divinylbenzene-acrylonitrile) (ST-DVB-AN) composite polymer electrolyte membrane based on the original PVC film was successfully synthesized to improve oxidative stability using semi-interpenetrated polymer network (semi-IPN). Weight gain ratio after copolymerization was enhanced by the DVB and AN contents, and the sulfonated membranes were characterized in terms of proton conductivity (k), ion exchange capacity (IEC), and water uptake ($W_U$). The effect of DVB content and AN addition were thoroughly investigated by comparing the resulted properties including oxidative stability. The obtained ST-DVB-AN composited semi-IPN membranes showed relatively high proton conductivity and IEC compared with Nafion117, and greatly improved oxidative stability of the synthesized membrane was obtained. This study demonstrated that a semi-interpenetrated sulfonated ST-DVB-AN composited membrane reinforced by PVC polymer network is a promising candidate as an inexpensive polymer electrolyte membrane for fuel cell applications.