• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.230-239
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• 1992

Nickel was used as a catalyst for the hydrogen electrode in alkaline fuel cell. The optimum electrolyte concentration and recommendable operating temperature identified from polarization curves were 6N KOH and $80^{\circ}C$, respectively. Comparing the conductivity, apparent porosity and current density at porous hydrogen electrode manufactured with various PTFE additions, the proper content of PTFE was 10wt%. Chemisorption was carried out to define the appropriate surface area. The electrode produced with 10wt% of PTFE and sintered at $340^{\circ}C$ showed more than $200mA/cm^2$ of current density. The morphology of electrode surface was investigated with SEM. Cold pressing, hot pressing, rolling and calendering methods were carried out for manufacturing the electrode, and electrochemical characteristics for each method was studied.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.220-228
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• 2018

The internal resistance of microbial fuel cell (MFC) using stainless steel skein for oxidizing electrode was investigated and the factors affecting the voltage generation were identified. We also investigated the effect of power management system (PMS) on the usability for MFC and the removal efficiency of organic pollutants. The performance of a stack microbial fuel cell connected with (PMS) or PMS+LED was analyzed by the voltage generation and organic matter reduction. The maximum power density of the unit cells was found to be $5.82W/m^3$ at $200{\Omega}$. The maximum current density was $47.53A/m^3$ without power overshoot even under $1{\Omega}$. The ohmic resistance ($R_s$) and the charge transfer resistance ($R_{ct}$) of the oxidation electrode using stainless steel skein electrode, were $0.56{\Omega}$ and $0.02{\Omega}$, respectively. However, the sum of internal resistance for reduction electrode using graphite felts loaded Pt/C catalyst was $6.64{\Omega}$. Also, in order to understand the internal resistance, the current interruption method was used by changing the external resistance as $50{\Omega}$, $300{\Omega}$, $5k{\Omega}$. It has been shown that the ohm resistance ($R_s$) decreased with the external resistance. In the case of a series-connected microbial fuel cell, the reversal phenomenon occurred even though two cells having the similar performance. However, the output of the PMS constantly remained for 20 hours even when voltage reversal occurred. Also the removal ability of organic pollutants (SCOD) was not reduced. As a result of this study, it was found that buffering effect for a certain period of time when the voltage reversal occurred during the operation of the microbial fuel cell did not have a serious effect on the energy loss or the operation of the microbial fuel cell.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.233-239
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• 2009

The electrocatalytic behavior of the PtCo catalyst supported on the multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) has been evaluated and compared with commercial Pt/C catalyst in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC). A PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalyst with a Pt:Co atomic ratio of 79:21 was synthesized and applied to a cathode of PEMFC. The structure and morphology of the synthesized PtCo/MWNTs electrocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. As a result of the X-ray studies, the crystal structure of a PtCo particle was determined to be a face-centered cubic(FCC) that was the same as the platinum structure. The particle size of PtCo in PtCo/MWNTs and Pt in Pt/C were 2.0 nm and 2.7 nm, respectively, which were calculated by Scherrer's formula from X-ray diffraction data. As a result we concluded that the specific surface activity of PtCo/MWNTs is superior to Pt/C's activity because of its smaller particle size. From the electrochemical impedance measurement, the membrane electrode assembly(MEA) fabricated with PtCo/MWNTs showed smaller anodic and cathodic activation losses than the MEA with Pt/C, although ohmic loss was the same as Pt/C. Finally, from the evaluation of cyclic voltammetry(CV), the unit cell using PtCo/MWNTs as the cathode electrocatalyst showed slightly higher fuel cell performance than the cell with a commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2017.07a
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• pp.461-462
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• 2017

가장 대표적인 연료전지인 고분자 전해질 연료전지(PEMFC; polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell)은 두 개의 전극으로 이루어지며, 각 전극(electrode)에 공급되는 수소(anode)와 공기(cathode)의 원활한 반응을 위해 촉매(catalyst)로서 백금(Pt)을 사용한다. 이 때, 촉매의 실험 조건에 따라 연료전지 두 전극의 반응이 달라지므로 촉매의 가변성 즉, 가변적인 전극 조건에 따른 전기화학적 특성이 면밀히 분석되어야 한다. 그러므로, 본 논문에서는 촉매의 변화에 기인한 가변적인 전극 특성에 따른 연료전지의 전기화학적 특성 분석을 실시하였다.

• Particle and aerosol research
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.69-74
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• 2012

This study describes how successfully a conventional flame aerosol synthesis was used to continuously synthesize Pt-Ru catalysts supported by carbon agglomerates. Nearly spherical catalysts produced in the flame were mainly composed of metallic Pt and Ru with the molar ratio of 1:1 and those sizes were controllable from ~1.5 nm to ~2.0 nm. Nevertheless, only Pt peaks were found from X-ray diffraction experiments, suggesting that amorphous-like Ru was well mixed in the crystalline Pt lattices. It was found from Cyclo-voltamograms and CO stripping experiments that the electrochemical properties of the catalysts are at least comparable to that of a conventional commercial sample.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.264-269
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• 2016

A simple dry chemical approach was developed in order to load palladium (Pd) as a promoter on Pt/gas diffusion electrode (GDE) for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Palladium(II) bis (acetylacetonate), $Pd(acac)_2$ was sublimed, penetrated into Pt/GDE and then reduced to Pd nanoparticles simultaneously without any reducing agent and any solvent in a glass reactor of $N_2$ atmosphere at $180^{\circ}C$ for 3, 5 and 15 min. Pd distribution was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and I-V curve was estimated by using a unit cell with $5{\times}5cm^2$ active area.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.178-186
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• 2023

Three activation methods (constant voltage, current cycling, and hydrogen pumping) were applied to investigate the effects on the performance of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) loaded with PtCo/C catalyst. The current cycling protocol took the shortest time to activate the MEA, while the performance after activation was the worst among the all activation methods. The constant voltage method took a moderate activation time and exhibited the best performance after activation. The hydrogen pumping protocol took the longest time to activate the MEA with moderate performance after activation. According to the distribution of relaxation time analysis, the improved performance after the activation mainly comes from the decrease of charge transfer resistance rather than the ionic resistance in the cathode catalyst layer, which suggests that the existence of water on the electrode is the key factor for activation.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.52-57
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• 2011

Present paper reports a new method to separate the electrolyte membranes and carbon paper without using ultrasonic waves and stirring. In this method, these were separated from fuel cell membrane-electrode assembly(MEA) using the distilled water, butanol and surfactant by dipping method without the dispersion of catalyst particles. Separated carbon paper catalysts and fuel cell Pt/C catalysts were heated in aqua regia at $80{\sim}85^{\circ}C$ and added to precipitant. After calcination, Pt metal was recovered which might be used in fabricating new fuel cells.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.345-351
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• 2024

The unitized regenerative fuel cell (URFC) is a method that can reduce costs and increase system simplification by unitizing a fuel cell system and a water electrolysis system. The spray method is suitable as the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) manufacturing method for URFC because it is easy to control the amount of catalyst, the size of the system is small, and economical manufacturing is possible. In this study, a numerical analysis of the effect of solution concentration on the spray method was performed to use it as basic data for the spray method to be used in MEA manufacturing. As result, as the Nafion solution concentration decreases it was found that the spray speed and the mass flow rate and the discrete phase model concentration increases and the spray range widens.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.142-149
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• 2013

Carbon materials are mainly used as catalyst supports for polymer exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Catalyst supports are required specific characteristics of the carbon materials, such as large surface area and high electrical conductivity. Attempted were to improve electrical conductivity and to maintain high surface area of carbon materials using a microwave treatment. Microwave treatment, as a relatively new technique, takes short reaction time and reduce the consumption of the gases used for carbon treatment compared to a traditional heat treatment. Hybrid carbon (ACF/Graphene) as catalyst supports by microwave-irradiation method for PEMFC increase the cell performance because of increased electrical conductivity resulting in triple-phase contact and reduced the interfacial resistance. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) were employed to analyze carbon materials. The performance of microwave-treated carbon materials was evaluated by measuring current-voltage (I-V) characteristics and electrode impedance.