• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.271-279
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• 2014

A 25kW-class polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell system has been developed for the propulsion of a leisure boat. The fuel cell system was designed to satisfy various performance requirements, such as resistance to shock, stability under rolling and pitching oscillations, and durability under salinity condition, for its marine applications. Then, the major components including a 30kW-class PEM fuel cell stack, a DC-DC converter, a seawater cooling system, secondary battery packs, and balance of plants were developed for the fuel cell system. The PEM fuel cell stack employs a unique design structure called an anodic cascade-type stack design in which the anodic cells are divided into several blocks to maximize the fuel utilization without hydrogen recirculation devices. The performance evaluation results showed that the stack generated a maximum power of 31.0kW while maintaining a higher fuel utilization of 99.5% and an electrical efficiency of 56.1%. Combining the 30-kW stack with other components, the 25kW-class fuel cell system boat was fabricated for a leisure. As a result of testing, the fuel cell system reached an electrical efficiency of 48.0% at the maximum power of 25.6kW with stable operability. In the near future, two PEM fuel cell systems will be installed in a 20-m long leisure boat to supply electrical power up to 50kW for propelling the boat and for powering the auxiliary equipments.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.770-777
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• 2009

The energy depletion and the environmental pollution like global warming are worldwide issues. For correcting these problems there are many studies on new-renewable energy in Korea. A kind of new-renewable energy, PEMFC(Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) is a low temperature fuell cell and there are some cases of small craft or submarine adopted PEMFC system in maritime. PEMFC's performance is affected the operating conditions. Finding optimum operating conditions must be performed before adopting PEMFC to system. So in this study, we experiment about various operating conditions to apply 150W PEMFC stack for a model boat. And through the results, we find optimum operating conditions and study an effect of operating conditions to PEMFC.