• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.45 no.12
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• pp.772-776
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• 2008

The Korea Electric Power Research Institute (KEPRI) has been developing planar solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and power systems for combined heat and power (CHP) units. The R&D work includes solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) materials investigation, design and fabrication of single cells and stacks, and kW class SOFC CHP system development. Anode supported cells composed of Ni-YSZ/FL/YSZ/LSCF were enlarged up to $15{\times}15\;cm^2$ and stacks were manufactured using $10{\times}10\;cm^2$ cells and metallic interconnects such as ferritic stainless steel. The first-generation system had a 37-cell stack and an autothermal reformer for use with city gas. The system showed maximum stack power of about $1.3\;kW_{e,DC}$ and was able to recover heat of $0.57{\sim}1.2\;kW_{th}$ depending on loaded current by making hot water. The second-generation system was composed of an improved 48-cell stack and a prereformer (or steam reformer). The thermal management subsystem design including heat exchangers and insulators was also improved. The second-generation system was successfully operated without any external heat source. Under self-sustainable operation conditions, the stack power was about $1.3\;kW_{e,DC}$ with hydrogen and $1.2\;kW_{e,DC}$ with city. The system also recuperated heat of about $1.1\;kW_{th}$ by making hot water. Recently KEPRI manufactured a 2kW class SOFC stack and a system by scaling up the second-generation 1kW system and will develop a 5kW class CHP system by 2010.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2021-2025
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• 2007

Performance of single cell at solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system is largely affected by electrocatalytic and thermal properties of cathode. Samarium-based perovskite oxide material is recently recognized as promising cathode material for intermediate temperature-operating SOFC due to its high electrocatalytic property. Perovskite structured $Sm_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}CoO_{3-\delta}$ and its composite material, $Sm_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}CoO_{3-\delta}/Sm_{0.2}Ce_{0.8}O_{1.9}$ were investigated in terms of area specific resistance (ASR), thermal expansion coefficient (TEC), thermal cycling and long term performance. $Sm_{0.2}Ce_{0.8}O_{1.9}$ was used as electrolyte material. Electrochemical ac impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and dilatometer were used to measure the cathodic properties. Composite cathode ($Sm_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}CoO_{3-\delta}$: $Sm_{0.2}Ce_{0.8}O_{1.9}$ = 6:4) showed a good ASR of 0.13${\Omega}$ $cm^2$ at 650$^{\circ}C$ and its TEC value was 12.3${\times}$10-6/K at 600$^{\circ}C$ which is similar to the value of ceria-based electrolyte of 11.9${\times}$10-6/K. Performance of composite cathode was maintained with no degradation even after 13 times thermal cycle test.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.386-392
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• 2018

Fuel cells are known as eco - friendly energy facilities that can use heat energy and electric energy at the same time. Fuel cells are classified according to the temperature and material used, and solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is relatively high temperature ($700-800^{\circ}C$). SOFC requires a hot box consisting of a high temperature stack, a reformer, a burner, and the heat exchangers in order to use energy efficiently. The hot box needs to maintain heat insulation performance at high temperature to reduce heat loss. However, Fibrous insulation, which is widely used, needs to be improved because it has a disadvantage that the thermal conductivity is rapidly increased due to the increase of temperature. Therefore, this study was carried out to develop a thermal insulation, which is applied to multiple layers insulation (MLI) technic, that can be used under SOFC operating conditions and prevent a drastic drop in thermal conductivity at high temperature. The developed insulation is consist of a thermally conductive material, a spacer, and a reflective plate. The thermal conductivity of the insulation was measured by in the thermal conductivity measuring device at high temperature range. As a result, it was confirmed that the developed layers insulation have an good thermal conductivity (0.116 W/mK) than fibrous insulation (0.24 W/mK) as a radiation shielding effect at a high temperature of 1,173 K.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.480-486
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• 2013

In this study, tubular SOFC unit cell with advanced anode current collector was fabricated to improve the cell performance. First, we prepared two types of single cells having the same manufacture processes such as the same electrolyte, electrode coating condition and sintering processes. And then to compare the developed single cell performance with conventional cells, we changed the anode current collecting methods. From the impedance analysis and I-V curve analysis, the cell performance of advanced cell is much higher than that of conventional cell.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.172-181
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• 2015

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) continue to be among the most promising alternative energy devices. This paper addresses i-V characteristics of SOFC with a focus on air flow rate along the planar anode electrodes. To address this, detailed Butler-Volmer kinetics are implemented in a general-purpose CFD code FLUENT. The numerical results were validated against experimental data from the literature showing excellent match with i-V polarization data ranging 1V-0.4V. Numerical calculations of fuel cell operation under different flow rare conditions were performed in three-dimensional geometries. Results are presented in terms of concentration distribution of hydrogen, oxygen, and water. The simulations and results indicate that advanced CFD with UDF(User-Defined Function) of Butler-Volmer kinetics can be used to identify the conditions leading to air flow rate and specific surface area and guide development of operating conditions and improve the fuel cell system performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.1-8
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• 2018

A fuel cell is an energy conversion device that converts a chemical energy directly into an electrical energy and has higher energy efficiency than an internal combustion engine, but solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) consisting of brittle ceramic material remains as a major issue regarding the mechanical properties as the crack formation and propagation. In this study, the stress distribution and crack behavior around the crack tip were evaluated, due to investigated the effects of the surface crack at the operating condition of high temperature. As a result, the difference of the generated stress was insignificant at operating conditions of high temperature according to the surface crack length changes. This is because, the high stiffness interconnect has a closed structure to suppress cell deformation about thermal expansion. The stress intensity factor ratio $K_{II}/K_I$ increased as the crack depth increased, at that time the effect of $K_{II}$ is larger than that of $K_I$. Also the maximum stress intensity factor increased as the crack depth increased, but the location of crack was generated at the electrolyte/anode interface, not at the crack tip.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.75-81
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• 2010

The feasibility of using the thin film technology in utilizing lanthanum strontium manganite (LSM) for a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) cathode in a low-temperature regime is investigated in this study. Thin film LSM cathodes were fabricated using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on anode-supported SOFCs with yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolytes. Although cells with a 1 ${\mu}m$-thick LSM cathode showed poor low-temperature cell performance compared to that of a cell with a bulk-processed cathode due to the lack of a triple-phase boundary length, the cell with 200 nm-thick gadolinia-doped ceria (GDC) inserted between the LSM and YSZ showed enhanced performance and more stable operation characteristics in a comparison of a cell without a GDC layer. We postulate that the GDC layer likely improved the cathode adhesion, therefore contributing to the improvement of the cell performance instead of serving as an interfacial reaction buffer.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.1605-1612
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• 2002

Thermodynamic performance analysis has been carried out for a hybrid electric power generation system combining a gas turbine and a solid oxide fuel cell and operating at over-atmospheric pressure. Performance characteristics with respect to main design parameters such as maximum temperature and pressure ratio are examined in detail. Effects of other important design parameters are investigated including fuel cell internal parameters such as fuel utilization factor, steam/carbon ratio and current density, and system parameters such as recuperator efficiency and compressor inlet temperature.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.40 no.7
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• pp.569-573
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• 2016

Strengthened regulations for atmospheric emissions from ships have created a need for new and alternative power systems that offer low emissions and high energy efficiency. Recently, new types of propulsion power systems, such as fuel cell systems that use hydrogen as an energy source, have gained serious consideration in applications requiring emission control. The purpose of this work is to certify the availability of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems equipped with recycled steam reforming fuel processors, and to compare their performance with that of extra steam reforming systems. The results demonstrate that the recycled steam reforming system has a slightly lower cell voltage and higher energy efficiency than the extra steam reforming system.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.383-388
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• 2011

In this paper, we consider Hammerstein-Wiener nonlinear model for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). A nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) is proposed to trace the constant stack terminal power by Hydrogen flow as control input. After the stability of the closed-loop system with static output feedback controller is analysed by Lyapunov method, a nonlinear model predictive control based on the Hammerstein-Wiener model is developed to control the stack terminal power of the SOFC system. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method based on the Hammerstein-Wiener model for SOFC system.