• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.38-46
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• 2022

Two different gas diffusion layers having noticeable differences in micro-porous layer's (MPL's) crack were studied as a substrate for the gas diffusion electrode (GDE) with different binder/carbon (B/C) ratios in high-temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cell (Ht-PEMFC). As a result, the performance defined as the voltage at 0.2 A/cm² and maximum power density from the single cells using GDEs from H23 C2 and SGL38 BC with different B/C ratios were compared. GDEs from H23 C2 showed a proportional increase of the voltage with the binder content on the other hand GDEs from SGL38 BC displayed a proportional decline of the voltage to the binder content. It was revealed that MPL crack influences the structure of catalyst layer in GDEs as well as affects the RC_athode which is in close connection with the Ht-PEMFC performance.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.550-556
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• 2022

The performance of enzymatic fuel cells that convert chemical energy contained in various organic molecules such as sugar, alcohol, organic acids, and amino acids into electrical energy is greatly affected by the cathode as well as the anode. This study aimed to develop a laccase-based cathode with high performance. An enzyme composite composed of an laccase, redox mediator, and carbon nanotubes was immobilized on the surface of electrode in multiple layers, and the effect of the number of layers and the presence or absence of carbon nanotubes on electrode performance was investigated. As the number of layers of the enzyme-mediator (Lac-(PVI-Os-dCl)) on the electrode surface increased, the amount of reduction current generated at the electrode increased. The enzyme-carbon nanotube-mediator composite electrode (Lac-SWCNTs-(PVI-Os-dCl)) generated a current 1.7 times greater than that of the Lac-(PVI-Os-dCl). It was found that the largest amount of current (10.1±0.1 µA) was generated in the electrode composed of two layers of Lac-(PVI-Os-dCl) and two layers of Lac-SWCNTs-(PVI-Os-dCl) in the evaluation of electrodes with different ratio of Lac-SWCNTs-(PVI-Os-dCl) and Lac-(PVI-Os-dCl). The maximum power density of the cell using the cathode composed of a single layer of Lac-(PVI-Os-dCl) and the cell using the optimized cathode were 0.46±0.05 and 1.23±0.04 µW/cm², respectively. In this study, it was demonstrated that the performance of cathode and the enzymatic fuel cell using the same can be improved by optimizing the layers of composites composed of laccase, redox mediator, and carbon nanotubes on the electrode surface.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.427-441
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• 2022

Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) serving as a separator that can prevent the permeation of unreacted fuels as well as an electrolyte that selectively transports protons from the anode to the cathode has been considered a key component of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The perfluorinated sulfonic acid-based PEMs, represented by Nafion®, have been commercialized in PEMFC systems due to their high proton conductivity and chemical stability. Nevertheless, these PEMs have several inherent drawbacks including high manufacturing costs by the complex synthetic processes and environmental problems caused by producing the toxic gases. Although numerous studies are underway to address these drawbacks including the development of sulfonated hydrocarbon polymer-based PEMs (SHP-PEMs), which can easily control the polymer structures, further improvement of PEM performances and durability is necessary for practical PEMFC applications. Therefore, this study focused on the various strategies for the development of SHP-PEMs with outstanding performance and durability by 1) introducing cross-linked structures, 2) incorporating organic/inorganic composites, and 3) fabricating reinforced-composite membranes using porous substrates.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.155-161
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• 2005

In this paper, commercial CFD program FLUENT v5.3 is used for simulation of MCFC stack. Besides using conservation equations included in FLUENT by default, mass change, mole fraction change and heat added or removed due to electrochemical reactions and water gas shift reaction are considered by adding several equations using user defined function. The stacks calculated are 6 and 25 kW class coflow stack which are composed of 20 and 40 unit cells respectively. Simulation results showed that pressure drop took place in the direction of gas flow, and the pressure drop of cathode side is more larger than that of anode side. And the velocity of cathode gas decreased along with the gas flow direction, but the velocity of anode gas increased because of the mass and volume changes by the chemical reactions in each electrodes. Simulated temperature profile of the stack tended to increase along with the gas flow direction and it showed similar results with the experimental data. Water gas shift reaction was endothermic at the gas inlet side but it was exothermic at the outlet side of electrode respectively. Therefore water gas shift reaction played a role in increasing temperature difference between inlet and outlet side of stack. This results suggests that the simulation of large scale commercial stacks need to consider water gas shift reaction.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.677-685
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• 2014

A direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) generates electricity directly by converting the chemical energy in coal. In particular, a DCFC system with a solid oxide electrolyte and molten carbonate anode media has been proposed by SRI. In this system, however, there are conflicting effects of temperature, which enhances the ion conductivity of the solid electrolyte and reactivity at the electrodes while causing a stability problem for the anode media. In this study, the effect of temperature on the stability of a carbon-carbonate mixture was investigated experimentally. TGA analysis was conducted under either nitrogen or carbon dioxide ambient for $Li_2CO_3$, $K_2CO_3$, and their mixtures with carbon black. The composition of the exit gas was also monitored during temperature elevation. A simplified reaction model was suggested by considering the decomposition of carbonates and the catalyzed Boudouard reactions. The suggested model could well explain both the measured weight loss of the mixture and the gas formation from it.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.53-63
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• 1995

A 100kW class stack consisting of 10 molten carbonate fuel cells has been fabricated. Internally manifold stack has been tested for endurance. Each cell in the stack had an electrode area of $100cm^2$ and reactant gases were distributed in each cells in a cross-flow configuration. Initial and long term operation performance of the stack was investgated as a function of gas utilization using a specially designed small scale stack test facility. It was possible to have a stack with an output of more than 100W using an anode gas of 72% $H_2/18%$ $CO_2/10%H_2O$ and cathode gas of 33% $O_2/67%$ $CO_2$ and 70% Air 30% $CO_2$. The output and voltage of the stack at a current 15A($150mA/cm^2$) and gas utilization of 0.4 showed 125.8W and 8.39V respectively by elapsed time of 310 hours operation. In long term operation characteristics, the voltage drop of 52.4mV/1000hour was observed after more than 1,840 hours operation. Among the voltage drop, the OCV loss was highest than other voltage loss such as internal resistance and electrode polarization. Non uniformity of 2voltages and degradation of cell voltage in the stack was observed in according to changing the utilization rate after a long term operation. Further work for increasing the performance prolonging the life of the stack are required.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.373-373
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• 2009

Relative humidity, membrane conductivity and water activity are critical parameters of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) for high performance and reliability. These parameters are closely related with temperature. Moreover, the ideal values of these parameters are not always identical along the channels. Therefore, the cooling channel design and its operating condition should be well optimized along the all location of the channels. In the present study, we have performed a numerical investigation on the effects of cooling channels on performance of a PEMFC. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations are solved with the energy equation including heat generated by the electrochemical reactions in the fuel cell. The present numerical model includes the gas diffusion layers (GDL) and serpentine channels for both anode and cathode gas flows, as well as cooling channels. To accurately predict the water transport across the membrane, the distribution of water content in the membrane is calculated by solving a nonlinear differential equation with a nonlinear coefficient, i.e., the water diffusivity which is a function of water content as well as temperature. Main emphasis is placed on the heat transfer between the solid bipolar plate and coolant flow. The present results show that local current density is affected by cooling channels due to the change of the oxygen concentration and the membrane conductivity as well as the water content. It is also found that the relative humidity is influenced by the generated water and the gas temperature and thus it affects the distribution of fuel concentration and the conductivity of the membrane, ultimately fuel cell performance. Unit-cell experiments are also carried out to validate the numerical models. The performance curves between the models and experiments show reasonable results.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.384-389
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• 2009

KEPRI (Korea Electric Power Research Institute) has studied planar type solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stacks using anode-supported cells and kW class co-generation systems for residential power generation. In this work, a 1 kW SOFC system consisted of a hot box part, a cold BOP (balance of plant) part, and a hot water reservoir. The hot box part contained a SOFC stack made up of 48 cells, a fuel reformer, a catalytic combustor, and heat exchangers. Thermal management and insulation system were especially designed for self-sustainable operation in that system. A cold BOP part was composed of blowers, pumps, a water trap, and system control units. When the 1 kW SOFC stack was tested using hydrogen at $750^{\circ}C$, the stack power was about $1.2\;kW_e$ at 30 A and $1.6\;kW_e$ at 50 A. Turning off an electric furnace, the SOFC system was operated using hydrogen and city gas without any external heat source. Under self-sustainable operation conditions, the stack power was about $1.3\;kW_e$ with hydrogen and $1.2\;kW_e$ with city gas respectively. The system also recuperated heat of about $1.1\;kW_{th}$ by making hot water.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.9-16
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• 2014

A proton exchange membrane is a core component in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell because the role of proton exchange membrane(PEM)is supplying proton conductivity to fuel cell, a gas separator, and insulating between an anode and cathode. Among various role of PEM, supplying proton conductivity is the most important and the proton conductivity is strongly related the structural evolution of PEM by hydration. Thus a lot of studies have done by past few decade based on small angle X-ray scattering and wide angle X-ray scattering for understanding morphological structure of the PEM. Resulting from these studies, several morphological models of hydrated PEM are proposed. Current sensing atomic force microscopy (CSAFM) can map morphology and conductance on the membrane simultaneously. It can be the best tool for studying heterogenous structured materials such as PEM. In this study, the hydration of the membrane is examined by using CSAFM. Conductance and morphological images are simultaneously mapped under different relative humidity. The conductance images, which are mapped from different relative humidity, are analyzed by statistical methode for understanding ionic channel variation in PEM.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.414-420
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• 2011

Thermal stress analysis of a planar anode-supported SOFC considering electrochemical reactions has been performed under operating conditions where average current density varies from 0 to 2000 $A/m^2$. For the case of the 2000 $A/m^2$ operating condition, Structural stress analysis based on the temperature distributions obtained from the CFD analysis of the unit cell has also been done. From this one way Fluid-Structure Interaction(FSI) analysis, Maximum Von-Mises stress under negligible temperature gradient fields occurs when cell components are perfectly bonded. The maximum stress of the electrolyte, cathode and anode in a unit cell SOFC is 262.58MPa, 28.55MPa and 15.1MPa respectively. The maximum thermal stress is critically dependent on static friction coefficient.