• Advances in Energy Research
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.107-128
• /
• 2017

Energy is a major component of almost all economic, production, and service activities, and rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization have led to ever growing demand for energy. Limited energy resources and increasingly evident environmental effects of fossil fuel consumption has led to a growing awareness about the importance of further use of renewable energy sources in the countries energy portfolio. Renewable hydrogen production is a convenient method for storage of unstable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy for use in other place or time. In this study, suitability of 25 cities located in Iran's western region for renewable hydrogen production are evaluated by multi-criteria decision making techniques including TOPSIS, VIKOR, ELECTRE, SAW, Fuzzy TOPSIS, and also hybrid ranking techniques. The choice of suitable location for the centralized renewable hydrogen production is associated with various technical, economic, social, geographic, and political criteria. This paper describes the criteria affecting the hydrogen production potential in the study region. Determined criteria are weighted with Shannon entropy method, and Angstrom model and wind power model are used to estimate respectively the solar and wind energy production potential in each city and each month. Assuming the use of proton exchange membrane electrolyzer for hydrogen production, the renewable hydrogen production potential of each city is then estimated based on the obtained wind and solar energy generation potentials. The rankings obtained with MCDMs show that Kermanshah is the best option for renewable hydrogen production, and evaluation of renewable hydrogen production capacities show that Gilangharb has the highest capacity among the studied cities.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2014

Ceria ($CeO_2$) was used to scavenge free radicals which attack the membrane in the polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) circumstance and to increase the duration of the membrane. In order to improve the electrochemical, mechanical and electrocatalytic characteristics, engineering plastic of the sulfonated polyether ether ketone (SPEEK) as polymer matrix was prepared in the sulfonation reaction of polyether ether ketone (PEEK) and the organic-inorganic blended composite membranes were prepared by sol-gel casting method with loading the highly dispersed ceria and cesium-substituted phophomolybdic acid(Cs-MoPA) with cross-linking agent contents of 0.01mL. In conclusion, CL-SPEEK/$Cs_{(2.5)}$-MoPA/ceria(1%) membrane showed the optimum results such as 0.1095S/cm of proton conductivity at $80^{\circ}C$, 2.906meq./g-dry-membrane of ion exchange capacity and mechanical characteristics, and 49.73MPa of tensile strength which were better than Nafion 117 membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.23 no.5
• /
• pp.437-447
• /
• 2012

Ceria ($CeO_2$) was used to scavenge free radicals which attack the membrane in the polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) circumstance and to increase the duration of the membrane. In order to improve the electrochemical, mechanical and electrocatalytic characteristics, engineering plastic of the sulfonated polyether ether ketone (SPEEK) as polymer matrix was prepared in the sulfonation reaction of polyether ether ketone (PEEK) and the organic-inorganic blended composite membranes were prepared by sol-gel casting method with loading the highly dispersed ceria and cesium-substituted tungstophosphoric acid (Cs-TPA) with cross-linking agent contents of 0.01 mL. In conclusion, CL-SPEEK/Cs-TPA/ceria (1%) membrane showed the optimum results such as 0.130 S/cm of proton conductivity at $80^{\circ}C$, 2.324 meq./g-dry-membrane of ion exchange capacity and mechanical characteristics, and 65.03 MPa of tensile strength which were better than Nafion 117 membrane.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.84 no.1
• /
• pp.103-113
• /
• 1995

To estimate buffer capacity and sensitivity of forest ecosystem to acid rain in Taejon, ionic components of throughfall, stemflow, soil leachate, and open rain in Pinus rigida and Quercus variabilis forest were analysed. The spatial sensitivity based on parent rock and forest type was given by IDRISI of GIS which created imagery conversion from soil and vegetation map. Parent rocks and soils were classified into acidic, sedimentary, metamorphic rock and then subdivided based on $SiO_2$ content. Average pH of vegetation leachate was higher in throughfall but lower in stemflow than open rain and higher in Quercus variabilis forest than in Pinus rigida forest. The flow of $SO{_4}^{2-}$, $NO_3{^-}$ and $Cl^-$ through vegetation leaching(throughfall plus stemflow) into soil were 7.2, 4.3, and 2.5 times, respectively, higher in Pinus rigida forest and 4.4, 2, and 2.5 times, respectively, higher in Quercus variabilis forest than in open field. But the concentration of exchangeable cations was 4.1 times higher in Pinus rigida forest and 4.6 times higher in Quercus variabilis forest than in open field. Average pH of soil leachate was lower than that of throughfall, but higher than that of stemflow. The concentration of exchangeable canons and $Al^{3+}$ in soil leachate were more in Pinus rigida forest than in Quercus variabilis forest and increase signficantly with the increase of acidic deposits. Pinus forest had more deposition and canopy interception of acidic pollutants and more nutrient loss than Quercus forest, and Quercus forest had more cation exchange and proton consumption and than consequently had less nutrient loss and better buffer capacity than Pinus forest. The 69% of forest soils was distributed on acidic rock, 25% of it on metamorphic rock, and 6% of it on intermediate and basic rock. Acidic rock residuals which had low very canon exchange capacity and high sensitivity to acid rain occupied a half of total forest land in Taejon area. Therefore forests in Taejon showed high vulnerability to acid rain and will receive much more stress with the increase of acid rain precursors.

• Membrane Journal
• /
• v.17 no.4
• /
• pp.294-301
• /
• 2007

To improve oxidative stability of non-fluorinated styrene-based polymer electrolyte membranes, copolymerized membranes were prepared using styrene derivatives such as p-methylstyrene, t-butylstyrene, and ${\alpha}-methylstyrene$ by monomer sorption method. Prepared membrane was characterized by measurement of weight gain ratio, water content, ion-exchange capacity, proton conductivity, and oxidative stability under the accelerated condition. It was found that each step of monomer sorption method including sorption, polymerization and sulfonation could be affected by the properties and the structures of styrenederivatives. Due to difficulty of polymerization, ${\alpha}$-methylstyrene was copolymerized with styrene or p-methylstyrene. Prepared membrane using ${\alpha}-methylstyrene$ and styrene showed higher performance and stability comparing to copolymerized membrane with styrene. However, copolymerized membranes with ${\alpha}-methylstyrene$ did not showed much improved oxidative stability comparing to styrene membrane due to their lower molecular weight. The t-butylstyrene membrane showed a low performance due to substituted bulky-butyl group which prevents sorption and sulfonation reaction. However, copolymerized t-butylstyrene membranes with p-methylstyrene showed good performance and much improved stability than the styrene membranes.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.62 no.1
• /
• pp.7-12
• /
• 2024

The durability of the catalyst support has a significant effect on the durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC). The accelerated durability evaluation of the catalyst support is performed at a high voltage (1.0 to 1.5 V), and the catalyst and ionomer binder in the catalyst layer are also deteriorated, hindering the evaluation of the durability of the support. The existing protocol (DOE protocol) was improved to find conditions in which the support, which is a durability evaluation target, deteriorates further. A protocol (MDOE) was developed in which the relative humidity was lowered by 35% and the number of voltage changes was reduced. After repeating the 1.0 ↔ 1.5 V voltage change cycle, the catalyst mass activitiy (MA), electrochemical active area (ECSA), electrical double layer capacity (DLC), Pt dissolution and particle growth were analyzed. Reaching 40% reduction in mass activity, the MDOE protocol took only 500 cycles, reducing the number of voltage changes compared to the DOE method and increasing the degradation of the carbon support by 50% compared to the DOE protocol.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.13 no.1 s.36
• /
• pp.54-63
• /
• 2007

Even traces of CO in the hydrogen-rich feed gas to proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) poison the platinum anode electrode and dramatically decrease the power output. In this work, a variety of catalytic materials consisting of $Cu/Ce_xZr_{1-x}O_2$, (x = 0.0-1.0) were synthesised, characterized and tested for CO oxidation and preferential oxidation of CO (PROX). These catalysts prepared by hydrothermal and deposition-precipitation methods. The catalysts were characterized by XRD, XRF, SEM, BET, $N_2O$ titration and oxygen storage capacity (OSC) measurement. The effects of composition of the support and degree of excess oxygen were investigated fur activity and $CO_2$ selectivity with different temperatures. The composition of the support markedly influenced the PROX activity. Among the various $Cu/Ce_xZr_{1-x}O_2$ catalysts having different composition, $Cu/Ce_{0.9}Zr_{0.1}O_2$ and $Cu/Ce_{0.7}Zr_{0.3}O_2$ showed the highest activities (>99%) and selectivities (ca.50%) in the temperature range of $150{\sim}160^{\circ}C$. It was found that by using of $Ce_xZr_{1-x}O_2$ mixed oxide support which possesses a high oxygen storage capacity, oxidation-reduction activity of Cu-based catalyst was improved, which resulted in the increase of catalytic activity and selectivity of CO oxidation in excess $H_2$ environments.