• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.57 no.2
• /
• pp.172-176
• /
• 2019

A benthic microbial fuel cells(BMFC) is fuel cell using electricity produced by decomposing organic matter in a sea or a lake. In this study, we used a gas diffusion layer (GDL) of a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEMFC) as a BMFC electrode to find out the operation conditions with high performance. The performance of BMFC was increased as resistance of external resistor increased. It was possible to maintain the performance by avoiding the increase of the contact resistance with the electrode due to corrosion of the lead wire in seawater. The bubble generator was able to increase the maximum power density by more than 2 times and the optimum operating temperature was $40^{\circ}C$.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.228-235
• /
• 2021

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) are currently being used in various transport applications such as drones, unmanned aerial vehicles, and automobiles. The power required is different according to the type of use, purpose, and the conditions adjusted using a cell stack. The fuel cell stack is compressed to reduce the size and prevent fuel leakage. The unit cells that make up the cell stack are subjected to compression by clamping force, which makes geometrical changes in the porous media and it impacts on cell performance. In this study, finite elements method (FEM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis for the deformed unit cell considering the effects of clamping force is performed. First, structural analysis using the FEM technique over the deformed gas diffusion layer (GDL) considering compression is carried out, and the resulting porosity changed in the GDL is calculated. The PEMFC model is then verified by a three-dimensional, two-phase fuel cell simulation applying the physical properties and geometry obtained before and after compression. The detailed simulation results showed different concentration distributions of fuel between the original and deformed geometry, resulting in the difference in the distribution of current density is represented at compressed GDL region with low oxygen concentration.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.36 no.2
• /
• pp.161-170
• /
• 2012

There are many factors to consider when attempting to improve the efficiency of fuel cell operation, such as the operation temperature, humidity, stoichiometry, operation pressure, geometric features, etc. In this paper, the effects of the operation pressure were investigated to find the current density and water saturation behavior on a cross section designated by the design geometry. A two-dimensional geometric model was established with a gas channel that can provide $H_2$ to the anode and $O_2$ and water vapor to the cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL). The results from this numerical modeling revealed that higher operation pressures would produce a higher current density than lower ones, and the water saturation behavior was different at operation pressures of 2 atm and 3 atm in the cathode GDL. In particular, the water saturation ratios are higher directly below the collector than in other areas. In addition, this paper presents the dependence of the velocity behavior in the cathode on pressure changes, and the velocity fluctuations through the GDL are higher in the output area than in inlet area. This conclusion will be utilized to design more efficient fuel cell modeling of real fuel cell operation.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.295-300
• /
• 2010

Metal bipolar plate applied to Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell is getting most attractive due to their good feasibility of mass production and low cost. But it is one of the immediate causes of performance decline because it is difficult to reduce channel pitch of metal bipolar plate. In this study, mesh was inserted in between bipolar plate and GDL to obtain uniform contact pressure without reducing channel pitch. The section measuring and performance test were carried out to confirm the mesh structure distributes contact pressure equally in reacting area. The performance of 3 type mesh structures developed in this study were higher than the normal cell at all over the current range. Especially, it showed that the mesh cell performance was increased and pressure drop was decreased with diminishing mesh gap size. The Mesh structure was more sensitive to humidification and contact pressure change than the normal cell.

• Analytical Science and Technology
• /
• v.6 no.3
• /
• pp.297-305
• /
• 1993

Generally, it is difficult to analyze cast iron samples with spark discharge emission spectrometry since the content of carbon in these samples is high as a few percent. The cast iron samples were analyzed with the developed glow discharge emission spectrometer composed of glow discharge emission source and polychromator. The discharge condition of glow discharge lamp(GDL) has been optimized by variation of Ar gas pressure, discharge voltage and discharge time. Under the optimum conditions obtained in this work, relationships between the measured emission intensities and concentration of two types of cast iron standard samples(BAS, LECO) were investigated. Most of elements(Mn, Si, P, S etc.) showed the good linearity in one calibration curve. And the carbon showed slightly the systematic difference according to the type of standard samples.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.1
• /
• pp.57-63
• /
• 2011

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance degrades when hydrogen sulfide ($H_2S$) is present in the fuel hydrogen gas; this is referred to as $H_2S$ poisoning. This paper reveals $H_2S$ poisoning on PEMFC by measuring electrical performance of single cell FC under various operating conditions. The severity of $H_2S$ poisoning depended on $H_2S$ concentration under best operating conditions($65^{\circ}C$ of cell temperature and 100% of anode humidification). $H_2S$ adsorption occured on the surface of catalyst layer on MEA, but not on the gas diffusion layer(GDL) by analyzing SEM/EDX data. In addition, MEA poisoning by $H_2S$ was cumulative but reversible. After poisoning for less than 150 min, performance of PEMFC was recovered up to 80% by just inert nitrogen gas purging.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.288-297
• /
• 2009

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from the intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with high aspect ratio of active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compressive forces. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.422-431
• /
• 2007

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) is very interesting power source due to high power density, simple construction and operation at low temperature. But it has problems such as high cost, improvement of performance and effect of temperature. These problems can be approached to be solved by using mathematical models which are useful tools for analysis and optimization of fuel cell performance and for heat and water management. In this paper, the present work is to develop an electrochemical model to examine the electrochemical process inside PEM fuel cell. A complete set of considerations of mass, momentum, species and charge is developed and solved numerically with proper account of electrochemical kinetics. When depth of gas channel becomes thinner, diffusion of reactant makes well into gas diffusion layer(GDL) and the performance increases. Although at low current region there is little voltage difference between experimental data of PEM fuel cell and numerical data. When the porosity size of gas diffusion layer for PEM fuel cell is bigger, oxygen diffusion occurs well and oxygen mass fraction appears high in catalyst layer.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2007.11a
• /
• pp.147-151
• /
• 2007

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with relatively high aspect ratio active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compression conditions. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds to that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.23 no.4
• /
• pp.293-299
• /
• 2012

The serpentine flow channel is widely used in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to prevent flooding phenomena because it effectively removes liquid water in the flow channel. The pressure drop between inlet and outlet increases as compared with straight channels due to minor losses associated with the corners of the turning configurations. This results in a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions, where some amount of reactant gas can be delivered to catalyst layers by convection through a gas diffusion layer (GDL). The enhancement of the convective flow in the GDL, so-called bypass flow, affects fuel cell performance since the bypass flow influences the reactant transport and thus its concentration over the active area. In the present paper, for the bipolar plate design, a simple analytic model has been proposed to predict the bypass flow in the serpentine type flow channels and validated with three-dimensional numerical simulation results.