• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.86-91
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• 2002

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) are of great interest of next generation energy conversion system due to their high energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. The basic SOFC unit consists of anode, cathode and solid electrolyte. Among these components, anode plays the most important role for the oxidation of fuel to generate electricity and also behaves as a substrate of the whole cell. It is normally requested that the anode materials should have the high electrical conductivity and gas permeability to reduce the polarization loss of the cell. In this study, the effect of pore former on the microstructure of anode substrate was investigated and thus on the electrical conductivity and the gas permeability. According to the results, microstructure and electrical conductivity of anode substrate were greatly influenced by the shape of pore former and especially by the anisotrpy of the pore former. The use of anisotropic pore former is supposed to deteriorate the cell performance by which the electrical conduction path is disconnected but also the effective gas diffusion path for the fuel is reduced.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.24-33
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• 2002

기존 Ni-10w/o Cr 연료극과 성능은 대등하면서 creep 저항성이 뛰어난 연료극을 제조하기 위하여 Ni-5w/o Al 합금 연료극의 제조 공정을 연구하였다. 소성 분위기에 따라 완전산화 방법과 부분산화 방법으로 나누어 제조된 전극들의 미세구조 변화를 관찰하였으며, 실험 결과 부분산화 방법으로 제조한 Ni-5w/o Al 합금 연료극이 가장 우수한 소결 및 creep 저항성을 나타내었다. 이는 연료극이 산화물 분산강화 구조를 갖기 때문으로 부분산화 방법으로 제조한 Ni-5w/o Al 합금 연료극을 장착한 단전지의 경우 기계적 안정성 및 전극 안정성이 향상되었다.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.467-473
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• 2008

This study is to investigate the influence of catalyst loading quantity on the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) performance. In this paper, Pt-Ru and Pt-black loading as the catalyst were varied from 1 to $4mg/cm^2$ at the anode and cathode, respectively. The experiment was conducted with single fuel cell consisted of $5cm^2$ effective electrode area, serpentine type flow pattern and Nafion 117 membrane. Also, AC impedance and methanol crossover current were measured to investigate the performance loss precisely. As a result, the performance of fuel cell was significantly increased with the increase of cathode catalyst loading. However, the performance did not increase further above a certain Pt-Ru catalyst loading as the increase of anode catalyst loading.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.283-287
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• 2007

KIER has been developing the anode-supported flat tubular solid oxide fuel cell unit bundle for the intermediate temperature($700{\sim}800^{\circ}C$) operation. Anode-supported flat tubular cells have Ni/YSZ cermet anode support, 8 moi.% $Y_2O_3$ stabilized $ZrO_2(YSZ)$ thin electrolyte, and cathode multi-layer composed of Sr-doped $LaSrMnO_3(LSM)$, LSM-YSZ composite, and $LaSrCoFeO_3(LSCF)$. The prepared anode-supported flat tubular cell was joined with ferritic stainless steel cap by induction brazing process. Current collection for the cathode was achieved by winding Ag wire and $La_{0.6}Sr_{0.4}CoO_3(LSCo)$ paste, while current collection for the anode was achieved by using Ni wire and felt. For making stack, the prepared anode-supported flat tubular cells with effective electrode area of $90\;cm^2$ connected in series with 12 unit bundles, in which unit bundle consists of two cells connected in parallel. The performance of unit bundle in 3% humidified $H_2$ and air at $800^{\circ}C$ shows maximum power density of $0.39\;W/cm^2$ (@ 0.7V). Through these experiments, we obtained basic technology of the anode-supported flat tubular cell and established the proprietary concept of the anode-supported flat tubular cell unit bundle.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.43 no.12 s.295
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• pp.812-822
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• 2006

This study amis to investigate the functional analysis of anode and cathode materials in Anode supported Solid Oxide Fuel Cell. The concentration polarization of single cell was investigated with CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) method for the case of the different morphology by using four types of unit cell and discussed to reduce the concentration polarization. The concentration polarization at anode side effected the voltage loss in Anode supported Solid Oxide Fuel Cell and increased contact areas between fuel gas and anode side could reduce the concentration polarization. For intermediate temperature operation, Anode-supported single cells with thin electrolyte layer of YSZ (Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia) were fabricated and short stacks were built and evaluated. We also developed diesel and methane autothermal reforming (ATR) reactors in order to provide fuels to SOFC stacks. Influences of the $H_2O/C$ (steam to carbon ratio), $O_2/C$ (oxygen to carbon ratio) and GHSV (Gas Hourly Space Velocity) on performances of stacks have been investigated. Performance of the stack operated with a diesel reformer was lower than with using hydrogen as a fuel due to lower Nernst voltage and carbon formation at anode side. The stack operated with a natural gas reformer showed similar performances as with using hydrogen. Effects of various reformer parameters such as $H_2O/C$ and $O_2/C$ were carefully investigated. It is found that $O_2/C$ is a sensitive parameter to control stack performance.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.494-497
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• 2006

For commercialization of polymer electrolytemembrane fuel cell (PEMFC), durability of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) has to be improved. Especially, long-term stability of MEA is one of the most important issues for frequent shut-down and start-up processes of PEMFC. The degradation of MEA could be attributed to chemical attack of hydrogen peroxide radicals that are formed at high cell voltages without any special treatment to remove residual hydrogen from anode gas channel after shut-down of the fuel cell. In this study, we investigated the long-term stability of MEA under different on/off operation conditions. Residential hydrogen gas was removed from the anode flow channel by purging air or nitrogen. Also, a dummy resistance was applied to the fuel cell to exhaust residential hydrogen at the anode. In these cases, MEA showed much more stable durability. Electrochemical characteristics of the fuel cell were measured byrepeating the on/off cycles with the hydrogen removal processes. Also, degradation of MEA components was examined by SEM, TEM and XRD analyses.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2198-2203
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• 2008

Hydrogen which can be produced through reforming process of hydrocarbon fuel is supplied into anode side of fuel cell system. In the fuel cell, only 70% of hydrogen is consumed through electrochemical reaction and 30% hydrogen passed by as anode off gas. When electrical output of fuel cell is within range of 1.0 to 3.0kW, burner for the reformer uses only anode off gas. And it uses mixture gas of anode off gas and LNG within range of 3.5 to 5.0kW in electrical output. CHEMKIN 4.1 program's Premixed code was used for calculating the properties of each gas. Results show that burning velocity and adiabatic flame temperature are 34.4cm/s, 1681.7K at equivalence ratio 0.8 within range of 1.0kW to 3.0kW and for cases of 3.5kW, 5.0kW, of electrical output, burning velocity and adiabatic flame temperature represent 30.5, 29.8cm/s and 1722.8, 1750K respectively. CO shows the lowest emission index at equivalence ratio 0.8 and NOx reveals the highest emission index at equivalence ratio 1.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.291-298
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• 2008

Carbon monoxide(CO) is one of the contamination source in reformed hydrogen fuel with an influence on performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC). The studies of CO injection presented here give information about poisoning and recovery processes. The aim of this research is to investigate cell performance decline due to carbon monoxide impurity in hydrogen. Performance of PEM fuel cell was investigated using current vs. potential experiment, long time(10 hours) test, cyclic feeding test and electrochemical impedance spectra. The concentrations of carbon monoxide were changed up to 10 ppm. Performance degradation due to carbon monoxide contamination in anode fuel was observed at high concentration of carbon monoxide. The CO gas showed influence on the charge transfer reaction. The performance recovery was confirmed in long time test when pure hydrogen was provided for 1 hour after carbon monoxide had been supplied. The result of this study could be used as a basis of various reformation process design and fuel quality determination.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.132-139
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• 2020

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are among one of the promising technologies for efficient and clean energy. SOFCs offer several advantages over other types of fuel cells under relatively high temperatures (600℃ to 800℃). However, the thermal behavior of SOFC stacks at high operating temperatures is a serious issue in SOFC development because it can be associated with detrimental thermal stresses on the life span of the stacks. The thermal behavior of SOFC stacks can be influenced by operating or material properties. Therefore, this work aims to investigate the effects of the thermal conductivity of each component (anode, cathode, and electrolyte) on the thermal behavior of samarium-doped ceria-based SOFCs at intermediate temperatures. Computational fluid dynamics is used to simulate SOFC operation at 600℃. The temperature distributions and gradients of a single cell at 0.7 V under different thermal conductivity values are analyzed and discussed to determine their relationship. Simulations reveal that the influence of thermal conductivity is more remarkable for the anode and electrolyte than for the cathode. Increasing the thermal conductivity of the anode by 50% results in a 23% drop in the maximum thermal gradients. The results for the electrolyte are subtle, with a ~67% reduction in thermal conductivity that only results in an 8% reduction in the maximum temperature gradient. The effect of thermal conductivity on temperature gradient is important because it can be used to predict thermal stress generation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.34-41
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• 2014

The goal of this study is to investigate some crack behaviors which affect the crack propagation angle at the planar solid oxide fuel cell with cracks under the fabricating and operating temperature and analyze the stresses by 3 steps processing on the solid oxide fuel cell. Currently, there are lots of researches of the performance improvement for fuel cells, and also for the more powerful efficiency. However, the planar solid oxide fuel cell has demerits which the electrode materials have much brittle properties and the thermal condition during the operating process. It brings some problems which have lower reliability owing to the deformation and cracks from the thermal expansion differences between the electrolyte, cathode and anode electrodes. Especially the crack in the corner of the electrodes gives rise to the fracture and deterioration of the fuel cells. Thus it is important to evaluate the behavior of the cracks in the solid oxide fuel cell for the performance and safety operation. From the results, we showed the stress distributions from the cathode to the anode and the effects of the edge crack in the electrolyte and the slant crack in the anode. Futhermore the crack propagation angle was expected according to the crack length and slant angle and the variation of the stress intensity factors for the each fracture mode was shown.