• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.8 no.2 s.23
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• pp.15-27
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is to improve the performance of Polymer electrolyte fuel cell(PEMFC) by studying the channel dimension of bipolar plates using commercial CFD program 'Fluent'. Simulations are done ranging from 0.5 to 3.0mm for different size in order to find the channel size which shoves the highst hydrogen consumption. The results showed that the smaller channel width, land width, channel depth, the higher hydrogen consumption in anode. When channel width is increased, the pressure drop in channel is decreased because total channel length Is decreased, and when land width is increased, the net hydrogen consumption is decreased because hydrogen is diffused under the land width. It is also found that the influence of hydrogen consumption is larger at different channel width than it at different land width. The change of hydrogen consumption with different channel depth isn't as large as it with different channel width, but channel depth has to be small as can as it does because it has influence on the volume of bipolar plates. however the hydrogen utilization among the channel sizes more than 1.0mm which can be machined in reality is the most at channel width 1.0, land width 1.0, channel depth 0.5mm and considered as optimum channel size. The fuel cell combined with 2cm${\times}$2cm diagonal or serpentine type flow field and MEA(Membrane Electrode Assembly) is tested using 100W PEMFC test station to confirm that the channel size studied in simulation. The results showed that diagonal and serpentine flow field have similarly high OCV and current density of diagonal (low field is higher($2-40mA/m^2$) than that of serpentine flow field under 0.6 voltage, but the current density of serpentine type has higher performance($5-10mA/m^2$) than that of diagonal flow field under 0.7-0.8 voltage.

• Clean Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.232-239
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• 2021

In order to develop a novel system named "thermal medium and gas circulation type pyrolysis system," this study was conducted to obtain basic data for process simulation before performing the pyrolysis experiment. Polypropylene (PP) was chosen as model material in the basic pyrolysis experiment instead of waste plastic and fluidized sand (hereinafter referred to as "sand"), and it was used as a heat transfer material in the "thermal medium and gas circulation type pyrolysis system." Ni was impregnated as an active catalyst on the sand to promote catalytic pyrolysis. The basic physical properties of PP were analyzed using a thermogravimetric analyzer, and pyrolysis was performed at 600 ℃ in an N₂ atmosphere to produce liquid oil. The distribution of the carbon number of the liquid oil generated through the catalytic pyrolysis reaction was analyzed using GC/MS. We investigated the effects of varying the pyrolysis space velocity and catalyst amount on the yield of liquid oil and the carbon number distribution of the liquid oil. Using Ni/sand, the yield of liquid oil was increased except with the pyrolysis condition of 10 wt% Ni/sand at a space velocity of 30,000 h^-1, and the composition of C₆ ~ C₁₂ hydrocarbons increased. With increases in the space velocity, higher yields of liquid oil were obtained, but the composition of C₆ ~ C₁₂ hydrocarbons was reduced. With 1 wt% Ni/sand, the oil yield obtained was greater than that obtained with 10 wt% Ni/sand. In summary, when 1 wt% Ni/sand was used at a space velocity of 10,000 h^-1, the oil yield was 60.99 wt% and the composition of C₆ ~ C₁₂ hydrocarbons was highest at 42.06 area%.