• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.9
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• pp.1260-1268
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• 2012

Recently, lack of power reserve margin was observed quite often. In this paper, we studied the method to secure power source for a short time, to cut the utility power peak load, and to reduce the users electricity bills. Emergency diesel generator of an office building is to be converted into a dual-fuel engine generator which is responsible for a portion of the peak load. Compared to the conventional diesel fuel generator, the proposed dual-fuel engine is able to reduce the generation power cost by dual-fuel combustion, and it also mitigates the building's utility power peak load by charging the building's peak load. If the dead resources (a group of emergency dual-fuel engine generators), as a Virtual Power Plant, are operating in peak time, we can significantly reduce future large power development costs. We investigated the current general purpose electricity bills as well as the records of the building electric power usage, and calculated diesel engine generator renovation costs, generation fuel costs, driving conditions, and savings in electricity bills. The proposed dual-fuel engine generation method reduces 18.1% of utility power peak load, and turned out to be highly attractive investment alternative which shows more than 27% of IRR, 76 million won of NPV, and 20~53 months of payback periods. The results of this study are expected to be useful to developing the policy & strategy of the energy department.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.245-255
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• 2021

Various studies about metallic bipolar plates have been conducted to improve fuel cell performance through flow field design optimization. These research works have been mainly focused on fuel cells for vehicle, but not fuel cells for building. In order to reduce the price and volume of fuel cell stacks for building, it is necessary to apply a metallic flow field, In this study, for a metallic flow field applied to a fuel cell for building, the effect of a change in the flow field shape on the performance of a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell was confirmed using a model and experiments with a down-sizing single cell. As a result, the flow field using a metal foam outperforms the channel type flow field because it has higher internal differential pressure and higher reactants velocity in gas diffusion layer, resulting in higher water removal and higher oxygen concentration in the catalyst layer than the channel type flow field. This study is expected to contribute to providing basic data for selecting the optimal flow field for the full stack of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells for buildings.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.881-892
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• 2016

Following the Fukushima accident and its extended station blackout, attention was brought to the importance of the spent fuel pools' (SFPs) behavior in case of a prolonged loss of the cooling system. Since then, many analytical works have been performed to estimate the timing of hypothetical fuel uncovery for various SFP types. Experimentally, however, little was done to investigate issues related to the formation of a flammable gas mixture, distribution, and stratification in the SFP building itself and to some extent assess the capability for the code to correctly predict it. This paper presents the main outcomes of the Experiments on Spent Fuel Pool (ESFP) project carried out under the auspices of Swissnuclear (Framework 2012-2013) in the PANDA facility at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland. It consists of an experimental investigation focused on hydrogen concentration build-up into a SFP building during a predefined scaled scenario for different venting positions. Tests follow a two-phase scenario. Initially steam is released to mimic the boiling of the pool followed by a helium/steam mixture release to simulate the deterioration of the oxidizing spent fuel. Results shows that while the SFP building would mainly be inerted by the presence of a high concentration of steam, the volume located below the level of the pool in adjacent rooms would maintain a high air content. The interface of the two-gas mixture presents the highest risk of flammability. Additionally, it was observed that the gas mixture could become stagnant leading locally to high hydrogen concentration while steam condenses. Overall, the experiments provide relevant information for the potentially hazardous gas distribution formed in the SFP building and hints on accident management and on eventual retrofitting measures to be implemented in the SFP building.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.743-748
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• 2022

The initial operation stability of hydrogen-fueled, solid oxide fuel cell with Ni thin-film anode fabricated by direct current sputtering was evaluated in terms of electrochemical properties such as peak power density, open circuit voltage, overpotential, and alternating current impedance at 500℃. Hydrogen and air were used as anode fuel and cathode fuel, respectively.

• Proceedings of the SAREK Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.82-87
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• 2007

In the present study, the simulation on the annual performance evaluation of a renewable energy systems with fuel cell driven compound source hybrid heat pump systems is applied to the heating and cooling of large community building. The large community building has the economical advantage to apply heat pump cooling and heating systems the long period operation. If air and ground source hybrid heat pump systems are combined, COP of the system can be increased largely. Fuel cell driven compound source hybrid heat pump system can reduced the fuel cost as well as thermal storage tank sharply.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.355-366
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• 2009

In the present study, fuel cell driven ground source heat pump system is applied to a large community building and performance of the heat pump system is computationally analyzed. Conduction heat transfer between brine pipe and ground is analyzed by TEACH code to predict the performance of heat pump system. Predicted COP of the heat pump system and the energy cost were compared with variation of the location of the objective building the water saturation rate of soil and the driven powers of heat pump system. Significant reduction of energy cost can be accomplished by employing the fuel cell driven heat pump system in comparison with the late-night electricity driven system. It is due to the low electricity production cost of fuel cell system and the application of recovered waste heat generated during electricity production process to the heating of large community building.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.23-35
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• 2008

In the present study, performances of fuel cell driven compound source hybrid heat pump system applied to a large community building are simulated. Among several renewable energy sources, ground, river, sea, and waste water sources are chosen as available alternative energies. The performance and energy cost are varied with the hybrid heat pump sources. The system design and operation process appropriate for the surrounding circumstance guarantee the high benefit of the heat pump system applied to a large community building. Th system is driven by fuel cell system instead of the late-night electricity due to the advantages of the low energy cost and waste heat with high temperature.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.474-481
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• 2013

Objectives: This study was conducted to investigate the application of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to the wastewater treatment systems employed in the Living Building Challenge. Methods: I reviewed a range of information on decentralized wastewater treatment technologies such as composting toilets, constructed wetlands, recirculating biofilters, membrane bioreactors, and MFCs. Results: The Living Building Challenge is a set of standards to make buildings more eco-friendly using renewable resources and self-treating water systems. Although there are various decentralized wastewater treatment technologies available, MFCs have been considered an attractive future option for a decentralized system as used in the Living Building Challenge. MFCs can directly convert substrate energy to electricity with high conversion efficiency at ambient and even at low temperatures. MFCs do not require energy input for aeration if using open-air cathodes. Moreover, MFCs have the potential for widespread application in locations lacking water and electrical infrastructure Conclusions: This paper demonstrated the feasibility of MFCs as a novel decentralized wastewater treatment system employed in the Living Building Challenge.

• Architectural research
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 2019

Recent years in Korea, some new developed buildings are only using electricity as power for heating, cooling, bathing and even cooking which means except electricity, there is no natural gas or other kinds of energy used in such kind of building. In vehicle industry area, scientists already invented electric vehicle as an environment friendly vehicle; after that, in architecture design and construction field, buildings only using electricity appeared; the curiosity of the environment impact of energy consumption by such kind of building lead me to do this research. In general, electricity is known as a clean energy resource reasoned by it is noncombustible energy resource; however, although there is no environmental pollution by using electricity, electricity generation procedure in power plant may cause huge amount of environment pollution; especially, electricity generation from combusting coal in power plant could emit enormous air pollutants to the air. In this research, the yearly amount of air pollution by energy using under traditional way in research target building that is using natural gas for heating, bathing and cooking and electricity for lighting, equipment and cooling is compared with yearly amount of air pollution by only using electricity as power in the building; result shows that building that only uses electricity emits much more air pollutants than uses electricity and natural gas together in the building. According to the amount of air pollutants comparison result between two different energy application types in the building, residential SOFC (Solid oxide fuel cell) is simulated to apply in this building for decreasing environment pollution of the building; furthermore, high load factor could lead high efficiency of SOFC, in the scenario of simulating applying SOFC in the building, SOFC is shared by two or three households in spring and autumn to increase efficiency of the SOFC. In sum, this research is trying to demonstrate electricity is a conditioned environment friendly energy resource; in the meanwhile, SOFC is simulated efficiently applying in the building only using electricity as power to decrease the large amount of air pollutants by energy using in the building. Energy consumption of the building is analyzed by calibrated commercial software Design Builder; the calibrated mathematical model of SOFC is referred from other researcher's study.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.53-78
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• 2013

Methane carbon dioxide reforming (MCDR) is a promising way of utilizing greenhouse gas for hydrogen-rich fuel production. Compared with other types of reactors, Compact Reformers (CRs) are efficient for fuel processing. In a CR, a thin solid plate is placed between two porous catalyst layers to enable efficient heat transfer between the two catalyst layers. In this study, the physical and chemical processes of MCDR in a CR are studied numerically with a 2D numerical model. The model considers the multi-component gas transport and heat transfer in the fuel channel and the porous catalyst layer, and the MCDR reaction kinetics in the catalyst layer. The finite volume method (FVM) is used for discretizing the governing equations. The SIMPLEC algorithm is used to couple the pressure and the velocity. Parametrical simulations are conducted to analyze in detail the effects of various operating/structural parameters on the fuel processing behavior.