• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.6-10
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• 2016

Until a recent day, degradation of PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells) has been mainly studied in unit cell. But operation and degradation of real PEMFC going along in stack instead of unit cell. Therefore in this work, ADT (Accelerated Degradation Test) of PEMFC was done in stack and the result from stack's test was compared with that of unit cell. The polymer electrolyte membrane was degraded by repeated electrochemical and mechanical degradation method among several ADT methods. Current densities of MEA at 0.6V decreased in stack and unit cell, 28.4% and 27.8% respectively after ADT for 312 hours. Hydrogen crossover current densities of membrane increased in stack and unit cell, 16.8% and 15.2% respectively after ADT for 312 hours. The result of ADT in stack was similar that of ADT in unit cell, which showed that ADT method of unit cell was available to the stack.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.503-509
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• 2016

Fuel cell is a device for producing electricity by using the hydrogen produced by the fuel processor. At this time, CO is also created by the fuel processor. The resulting CO enters the stack where is produce electricity and leads to the adsorption of anode catalyst, finally the CO poisoning occurs. Stack which occurred CO poisoning has a reduction in performance and shelf life are gradually fall because they do not respond to hydrogen. In this paper, experiments that using a PROX reactor to prevent CO poisoning were carried out for removing the CO concentration to less than 10ppm range available in the fuel cell. Furthermore experiments by the PROX reaction was designed and manufactured with a water-cooling heat exchange reactor to maintain a suitable temperature control due to the strong exothermic reaction.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.422-431
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• 2007

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) is very interesting power source due to high power density, simple construction and operation at low temperature. But it has problems such as high cost, improvement of performance and effect of temperature. These problems can be approached to be solved by using mathematical models which are useful tools for analysis and optimization of fuel cell performance and for heat and water management. In this paper, the present work is to develop an electrochemical model to examine the electrochemical process inside PEM fuel cell. A complete set of considerations of mass, momentum, species and charge is developed and solved numerically with proper account of electrochemical kinetics. When depth of gas channel becomes thinner, diffusion of reactant makes well into gas diffusion layer(GDL) and the performance increases. Although at low current region there is little voltage difference between experimental data of PEM fuel cell and numerical data. When the porosity size of gas diffusion layer for PEM fuel cell is bigger, oxygen diffusion occurs well and oxygen mass fraction appears high in catalyst layer.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.232-238
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• 2008

Research has been proceeded on fuel cell which is fueled by hydrogen. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is promising power source due to high power density, simple construction and operation at low temperature. But it has problems such as high cost, temperature dependent performance. These problems could be solved by experiment which is useful for analysis and optimization of fuel cell performance and heat management. In this paper, when hydrogen flows constantly at the stoichiometry of ${\xi}=1.6$, the performance of the fuel cell stack was increased and the voltage difference between each cells was decreased according to the increase of air stoichiometry by 2.0, 2.5, 3.0. Therefore, the control of air flow rate in the same gas channel is important to get higher performance. Purpose of this research is to expect operation temperature, flow rate, performance and mass transportation through experiment and to help actual manufacture of PEM fuel cell stack.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.150-155
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• 2012

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) stack power output is needed to be approximately 100 kW to meet the requirements of automotive applications. In order to secure the electric safety for drivers, passengers and mechanics, it is very important to understand phenomena of an electric insulation in a fuel cell vehicle. In this study, we studied the electric insulation properties and the insulation resistance of stack, system and vehicle in the field of fuel cell was estimated at the applied voltage of 500 V, respectively. Also we discussed the insulation factors such as the conductivity of coolant, the element of vehicle design and the intrinsic resistance of the vehicle components.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.578-583
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• 2006

This paper introduces conceptual design of scroll expander-compressor unit for fuel cell. Since air discharged out of the fuel cell stack after reaction has still high pressure energy, some power can be extracted out of it by directing it to pass through an expanding device so that the extracted power can be used to drive an auxiliary compressor. For this purpose, a scroll type expander coupled to a scroll type compressor was designed: orbiting scroll of the expander and that of the compressor were made to share three of common drive pins installed in the mid frame plate, and central cavity in the mid-plate was used as a back pressure chamber to provide axial compliance for both orbiting scrolls. Performance analysis for the expander showed that the shaft power of the expander could reduce the auxiliary power consumption in the fuel cell by about one third at the scroll clearance of $10{\mu}m$.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.185-189
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• 2010

This study considered the feasibility of controlling the air concentration by oscillating flow in fuel cell channels. The fuel cell stack performance is largely influenced by the air concentration. If the air concentration is lower than 2.5 times the stoichiometric of the inlet air, the fuel cell stack performance seriously deteriorates because of air starvation. In this respect, optimizing the air concentration is crucially important to maximizing the fuel cell stack performance. In this work, the effects of oscillating actuation were studied to control the concentration. Studies have shown that there are two non-dimensional key parameters related to the frequency and oscillating amplitude. This paper presents how those parameters affect the performance of the stack.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.264-269
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• 2016

A simple dry chemical approach was developed in order to load palladium (Pd) as a promoter on Pt/gas diffusion electrode (GDE) for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Palladium(II) bis (acetylacetonate), $Pd(acac)_2$ was sublimed, penetrated into Pt/GDE and then reduced to Pd nanoparticles simultaneously without any reducing agent and any solvent in a glass reactor of $N_2$ atmosphere at $180^{\circ}C$ for 3, 5 and 15 min. Pd distribution was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and I-V curve was estimated by using a unit cell with $5{\times}5cm^2$ active area.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.86-91
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• 2008

The rubber was compounded with carbon black and silica series-filler to examine the effects of the various rubber fillers on a gasket material's suitability and fuel cell stack conclusion. The evaluation of a long term heat resistance and oil resistance of the mixed rubber material was performed considering at the drive environment of PEMFC. Test results of compression set for the most influencing property of gasket showed that it was about less than 15% at long term of up to 1000 h. In this experiment, FEM analysis is carried out about the rubber material's properties depending on each filler and the stress which is produced when a gasket is contracted by using various filler. Sealing force was expected to maximum 2.5 MPa from minimum 0.2 MPa by using FEM (finite element method) at stacking gasket to gasket.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.183-186
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• 2003

In a PEM fuel cell electrode, backing layer has tremendous impact on electrode performance. The backing layer provides structural support for the porous electrode, distributes the reactants to the other layers and acts as a current collector. It has major influence on the water management in a PEM fuel cell. Selection of suitable backing layer material for the fabrication of electrode is thus very important to achieve high performance. In this paper we have compared the performance of PEM fuel cell electrodes fabricated using carbon paper EC-TPI-060T, carbon cloth EC-CCI-060T, (ElectroChem Inc.USA) and Carbon cloth from Textron, USA (CPW 003 grade). Mass transport problem was observed under non-pressurized condition, at high current densities, in the caie of EC-CC1-060T carbon cloth electrode (at $50^{\circ}C$), due to its higher thickness. The performance of carbon paper electrode was higher than EC-CCI-060T carbon cloth electrode. The performance of Textron carbon cloth was comparable to EC-TPI -060T carbon paper.