• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.800-809
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• 2011

The reaction characteristics of an integrated reactor with steam reformer and catalytic combustor using anode offgas for high temperature fuel cells such as MCFC and SOFC have been experimentally investigated in the present study. The coupled reactor had a coaxial cylindrical shape, and the inner and the outer tube was packed with combustion catalysts and reforming catalysts, respectively. Thus, the endothermic steam reforming could proceed by absorbing heat from catalytic combustion of anode offgas. Results show that increasing inlet temperature and decreasing excess air ratio increased the reformer temperature, which led to the increase in $H_2$ yield. The reforming performance for SOFC conditions was better than that for MCFC conditions since the composition of flammable components became smaller for MCFC cases. Measured reformate composition under various test conditions correlated well with thermal equilibrium composition.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.609-615
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• 2011

A 5 kW class SOFC system for cogeneration power units was consisted of a hot box part and cold BOPs. High temperature components such as a stack, a fuel reformer, a catalytic combustor, and heat exchanges are arranged in the bot box considering their operating temperatures for the system efficiency. The hot box was made of ceramic boards for the thermal insulation. A 5 kW class SOFC stack was composed of 2 sub-modules and each module had 64 cells with $15{\times}15cm^2$ area and stainless steel interconnects. The 5 kW class SOFC system was operated with a hydrogen and a city gas. With a hydrogen, the total power of the stacks was about 7.1 kWDC and electrical efficiency was about 49.3% at 80 A. With a city gas, the total power of the stacks was about 5.7 $kW_{DC}$ and electrical efficiency was about 38.8% at 60 A. Under self-sustained operating condition, the system efficiency including a power conditioning loss and a consumed power by BOPs was about 30.2%.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.49-62
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• 2016

In this study, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system model including balance of plant (BOP) for building electric power generation is developed to study the effect of operating conditions on the system efficiency and power output. SOFC system modeled in this study consists of three heat-exchangers, an external reformer, burner, and two blowers. A detailed computational cell model including internal reforming reaction is developed for a planer SOFC stack which is operated at intermediate temperature (IT). The BOP models including an external reformer, heat-exchangers, a burner, blowers, pipes are developed to predict the gas temperature, pressure drops and flow rate at every component in the system. The SOFC stack model and BOP models are integrate to estimate the effect of operating parameters on the performance of the system. In this study, the design of experiment (DOE) is used to compare the effects of fuel flow rate, air flow rate, air temperature, current density, and recycle ratio of anode off gas on the system efficiency and power output.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.331-343
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• 2005

Development of hydrogen station system is an important technology to commercialize fuel cells and fuel cell powered vehicles. Generally, hydrogen station consists of hydrogen production process including desulfurizer, reformer, water gas shift (WGS) reactor and pressure swing adsorption (PSA) apparatus, and post-treatment process including compressor, storage and distributer. In this review, we investigate the R&D trends and prospects of hydrogen station in domestic and foreign countries for opening the hydrogen economy society. Indeed, the reforming of fossil fuels for hydrogen production will be essential technology until the ultimate process that may be water hydrolysis using renewable energy source such as solar energy, wind force etc, will be commercialized in the future. Hence, we also review the research trends on unit technologies such as the desulfurization, reforming reaction of fossil fuels, water gas shift reaction and hydrogen separation for hydrogen station applications.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.733-742
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• 2022

Hydrogen fuel cell propulsion ships are emerging to respond to the recently strengthened carbon emission regulations in the international shipping sector. Methanol can be stored in a liquid state at normal pressure and temperature, and has the advantage of lower reforming temperature compared to other fuels. In this study, the optimal operating point of the methanol steam reforming system was derived by changing the Steam Carbon Ratio (SCR) from 0.10 to 3.00. Results showed that In terms of methanol conversion rate and hydrogen yield, the larger the SCR is the better, but in terms of system efficiency, it is most advantageous to operate at SCR 0.70 in Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) mode and SCR 0.80 in Pd membrane mode. Through this study, it was found that the optimal SCR in the reformer and the entire system including the reformer may be different, which indicates that the optimum operating point may be different depending on the change of the system configuration.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.656-662
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• 2007

Fuel reformer using plasma and shift reactor for CO oxidation were designed and manufactured as $H_2$ supply device to operate a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). $H_2$ selectivity was increased by non-thermal plasma reformer using GlidArc discharge with Ni catalyst simultaneously. Shift reactor was consisted of steam generator, low temperature shifter, high temperature shifter and preferential oxidation reactor. Parametric screening studies of fuel reformer were conducted, in which there were the variations of the catalyst temperature, gas component ratio, total gas ratio and input power. and parametric screening studies of shift reactor were conducted, in which there were the variations of the air flow rate, stema flow rate and temperature. When the $O_2/C$ ratio was 0.64, total gas flow rate was 14.2 l/min, catalytic reactor temperature was $672^{\circ}C$ and input power 1.1 kJ/L, the production of $H_2$ was maximized 41.1%. And $CH_4$ conversion rate, $H_2$ yield and reformer energy density were 88.7%, 54% and 35.2% respectively. When the $O_2/C$ ratio was 0.3 in the PrOx reactor, steam flow ratio was 2.8 in the HTS, and temperature were 475, 314, 260, $235^{\circ}C$ in the HTS, LTS, PrOx, the conversion of CO was optimized conditions of shift reactor using simulated reformate gas. Preheat time of the reactor using plasma was 30 min, component of reformed gas from shift reactor were $H_2$ 38%, CO<10 ppm, $N_2$ 36%, $CO_2$ 21% and $CH_4$ 4%.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2918-2922
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• 2007

This is a report of a feasibility study on the reduction of harmful substances such as particulate matters and nitric oxides emitted from diesel engines by using a plasma reforming system that can generate hydrogen-rich gas. In this paper, an exhaust reduction mechanism of the non-thermal plasma reaction was investigated to perform its efficiency and characteristics on producing hydrogen-rich gas. Firstly, we explain briefly the chemistry of hydrocarbon reforming. The experimental system is showed in the second part. Finally, we demonstrate the feasibility of producing hydrogen using non-thermal plasma. The experimental results are focused on the influence of the different operating parameters (air ratio, inlet flow rates, voltage) on the reformer efficiency and the composition of the produced gas.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.1664-1669
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• 2004

Design analysis of the solid oxide fuel cell and gas turbine combined power system is performed considering different methods for preheating cell inlet air. The purpose of air preheating is to keep the temperature difference between cell inlet and outlet within a practical design range. Three different methods are considered such as a burner in front of the cell, a preheater in front of the cell and recirculation of the cathode exit gas. Analyses are carried out for two maximum cell temperature differences. The greater temperature difference ensures higher efficiency. The cathode exit gas recirculation exhibits better performance than other methods.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2000

The growing concerns on environmental protection have been constantly demanding cleaner and more energy efficient vehicles without compromising any conveniences provided by the conventional vehicles. The recent significant advances in proton-exchange-membrane (PEM) fuel cell technology have shown the possibility of developing such vehicles powered by fuel cells. Several prototype fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) have been already developed by several major automotive manufactures, and all of the favorable features have been demonstrated in the public roads. FCEV is essentially a zero emission vehicle and allows to overcome the range limitation of the current battery electric vehicles. Being motivated by the laboratory and field demonstrations of the fuel cell technologies, variety of fuel cell alliances between fuel cell developers, automotive manufactures, petroleum companies and government agencies have been formed to expedite the realization of commercially viable FCEV. However, there still remain major issues that need to be overcome before it can be fully accepted by consumers. This paper describes the current fuel cell vehicle development status and the staggering challenges for the successful introduction of consumer acceptable FCEVS.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.78-81
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• 2008

Residential fuel cell cogeneration systems have gained much interest due to its high efficiency. In the present study, we have performed numerical simulation of residential fuel cell cogeneration system which includes a fuel cell/battery hybrid system. The cogeneration system consists of 1kW PEFC, two 60Ah batteries, inverter/converter and reformer. Several empirical models have been employed for respective components to improve the accuracy of the simulations. The load varies seasonally. The present simulations can successfully predict the characteristics of the hybrid cogeneration system and thus it can be utilized for establishing an optimal operating strategy of the system.