• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.220-227
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• 2004

The purpose of this paper is, based on the theoretical background of the principle of gas purification and absorption, and the absorbing ability of metals, to syudy the efficiency of gas purification of inorganic gases using Zr alloys, so as to contribute to the IT industry. To produce and distribute gas with high purity and ultra-high purity, different types of gas purifier are currently being used: distillation type, getter type, catalyst type, absorption at low-temperature type, and membrane separation equipment. From the different purification methods mentioned above, the getter type gas purifier is capable of not only high performance and capacity but also P.O.U(Point Of Use) method. The key of the getter type gas purifier is its efficiency of gas purification, which is the subject chosen for this study.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.581-586
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• 2023

As the development of alternative energy is required due to the depletion of fossil fuels, interest in the use of hydrogen energy is increasing. Hydrogen is a promising clean energy source with high energy density and can lead to the application of environmentally friendly technologies. However, due to difficulties in production, storage, and transportation that prevent the application of hydrogen-based eco-friendly technology, research on reforming reactions using dimethyl ether (DME) is being conducted. Unlike other hydrocarbons, DME is attracting attention as a hydrogen carrier because it has excellent storage stability and transportability, and there is no C-C bond in the molecule. The reaction between DME and steam is one of the reforming processes with the highest hydrogen yield in theory at a temperature lower than that of other hydrocarbons. In this study, a hydrogen reforming device using DME was developed and a catalyst prepared by supporting Cu in alumina was put into a reactor to find optimal hydrogen production conditions for supplying hydrogen to fuel cells while changing reaction temperature (300-500℃), pressure (5-10 bar), and steam/carbon ratio (3:1 to 5:1).

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.609-615
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• 2011

A 5 kW class SOFC system for cogeneration power units was consisted of a hot box part and cold BOPs. High temperature components such as a stack, a fuel reformer, a catalytic combustor, and heat exchanges are arranged in the bot box considering their operating temperatures for the system efficiency. The hot box was made of ceramic boards for the thermal insulation. A 5 kW class SOFC stack was composed of 2 sub-modules and each module had 64 cells with $15{\times}15cm^2$ area and stainless steel interconnects. The 5 kW class SOFC system was operated with a hydrogen and a city gas. With a hydrogen, the total power of the stacks was about 7.1 kWDC and electrical efficiency was about 49.3% at 80 A. With a city gas, the total power of the stacks was about 5.7 $kW_{DC}$ and electrical efficiency was about 38.8% at 60 A. Under self-sustained operating condition, the system efficiency including a power conditioning loss and a consumed power by BOPs was about 30.2%.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.62-67
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• 2019

This study was focused on the design and the performance analysis of integral Hot BoP for recovering waste heat from high-temperature exhaust gas in 2 kW class solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). The hot BoP system was consisted of a catalytic combustor, air preheater and steam generator for burning the stack exhaust gas and for recovering waste heat. In the design of the system, the maximum possible heat transfer was calculated to analyze the heat distribution processes. The detail design of the air preheater and steam generator was carried out by solving the heat transfer equation. The hot BoP was fabricated as a single unit to reduce the heat loss. The simulated stack exhaust gas which considered SOFC operation was used to the performance test. In the hot BoP performance test, the heat transfer rate and system efficiency were measured under various heat loads. The combustibility with the equivalent ratio was analyzed by measuring CO emission of the exhaust gas. As a result, the thermal efficiency of the hot BoP was about 60% based on the standard heat load of 2 kW SOFC. CO emission of the exhaust gas rapidly decreased at an equivalent ratio of 0.25 or more.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.77-86
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• 2023

In this study, pore-filled ion exchange membranes with low membrane resistance and high hydroxide ion conductivity was developed. To improve alkali durability, a porous substrate made of polytetrafluoroethylene was used, and a copolymer was prepared using monomers 2-(dimethyl amino) ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) and vinyl benzyl chloride (VBC) for pores. divinyl benzene (DVB) was used as the cross-linker, and ion exchange membranes were prepared for each cross-linking agent content to study the effect of the cross-linker content on DMAEMA-DVB and VBC-DMAEMA-DVB copolymers. As a result, chemical stability is improved by using a PTFE material substrate, and productivity can be increased by enabling fast photo polymerization at a low temperature by using a low-pressure UV lamp. To confirm the physical and chemical stability of the ion exchange membrane required for an anion exchange membrane fuel cell, tensile strength, and alkali resistance tests were conducted. As a result, as the cross-linking degree increased, the tensile strength increased by approximately 40 MPa, and finally, through the silver conductivity and alkali resistance tests, it was confirmed that the alkaline stability increased as the cross-linking agent increased.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1193-1199
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• 2012

A cup burner experiment was performed to investigate the effect of the oxidizer velocity and concentration on flame instability near extinction. Heptane was used as a fuel and air diluted by nitrogen and carbon dioxide was used in the oxidizer stream. Two types of flame instabilities at the flame base and at axial downstream were observed near extinction. The instability at the flame base could be characterized by cell, swing, and rotation modes, and the cell mode changed to the rotation mode through the swing mode as the oxidizer velocity increased. To assess the parameters for the flame instability, the initial mixture strengths, Lewis number, and adiabatic flame temperature were investigated under each condition. The Lewis number might be the most important among them, but it is impossible to generalize because of the insufficient number of cases. Furthermore, the axial periodic flickering motion disappeared at low and high oxidizer velocities near extinction. This resulted from the fact that low oxidizer velocity induced evaporated fuel velocity below the critical velocity and high velocity made the reacting fuel velocity comparable.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.343-350
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• 2012

A planar solid oxide fuel cell (PSOFC) is studied in its application in a high-temperature stationary power plant. Even though PSOFCs with external reformers are designed for application from the distributed power source to the central power plant, such PSOFCs may sacrifice more system efficiency than internally reformed SOFCs. In this study, modeling of the PSOFC with an external reformer was developed to analyze the feasibility of thermal energy utilization for the external reformer. The PSOFC system model includes the stack, reformer, burner, heat exchanger, blower, pump, PID controller, 3-way valve, reactor, mixer, and steam separator. The model was developed under the Matlab/Simulink environment with Thermolib$^{(R)}$ modules. The model was used to study the system performance according to its configuration. Three configurations of the SOFC system were selected for the comparison of the system performance. The system configuration considered the cathode recirculation, thermal sources for the external reformer, heat-up of operating gases, and condensate anode off-gas for the enhancement of the fuel concentration. The simulation results show that the magnitude of the electric efficiency of the PSOFC system for Case 2 is 12.13% higher than that for Case 1 (reference case), and the thermal efficiency of the PSOFC system for Case 3 is 76.12%, which is the highest of all the cases investigated.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.670-677
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• 2012

Perovskite-type oxides such as doped barium zirconate ($BaZrO_3$) show high proton conductivity and chemical stability when they are exposed to hydrogen and water vapour containing atmospheres, thus it can be applicable to the hydrogen separation and the fuel cell electrolyte membranes. However the high temperature ($1700-1800^{\circ}C$) and long sintering times (24h) are generally required to prepare the fully densified $BaZrO_3$ pellets. These sintering conditions lead to the limitation of the grain size growth and the degradation of conductivity due to the acceleration of BaO evaporation at $1200^{\circ}C$. Here we demonstrate NiO-doped $BaZr_{0.85}Y_{0.15}O_{3-{\delta}}$ with lower calcination and sintering temperature, less experimental procedure and lower process cost than the conventional mixing method. The stoichiometry of $BaZr_{0.85}Y_{0.15}O_{3-{\delta}}$ was optimized by the control of excess amount of Ba (5mol%) to minimized BaO evaporation. We found that the crystal size of NiO-doped $BaZr_{0.85}Y_{0.15}O_{3-{\delta}}$ was increased with increase of calcination temperature from XRD analysis. NiO-doped $BaZr_{0.85}Y_{0.15}O_{3-{\delta}}$ powder was calcined at $1000^{\circ}C$ for 12h when its showed the highest conductivity of $3.3{\times}10^{-2}s/cm$.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.161-165
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• 2021

In general, SOFCs mainly use Ni-YSZ cermet, a mixture of Ni and YSZ, as an anode material, which is stable in a high-temperature reducing atmosphere. However, when SOFCs have operated at a high temperature for a long time, the structural change of Ni occurs and it results in the problem of reducing durability and efficiency. Accordingly, a development of a new anode material that can replace existing nickel and exhibits similar performance is in progress. In this study, SrTiO₃, which is a perovskite-based mixed conductor and one of the candidate materials, was used. In order to increase the electrical conduction properties, Y_0.08Sr_0.92Fe_0.3Ti_0.7O₃, doped with 0.08 mol of Y³⁺ in Sr-site and 0.03 mol of transition metal Fe³⁺ in Ti-site, was synthesized and its chemical diffusion coefficient and reaction constant were measured. Its electrical conductivity changes were also observed while changing the oxygen partial pressure at a constant temperature. The performance as a candidate electrode material was verified by predicting the defect area through the electrical conductivity pattern according to the oxygen partial pressure.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.82-85
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• 2010

Recently, thin film processes for oxides and metal deposition, such as physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD), have been widely adapted to fabricate solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In this paper, we presented two research area of the use of such techniques. Gadolinium doped ceria (GDC) showed high ionic conductivity and could guarantee operation at low temperature. But the electron conductivity at low oxygen partial pressure and the weak mechanical property have been significant problems. To solve these issues, we coated GDC electrolyte with a nano scale yittria-doped stabilized zirconium (YSZ) layer via atomic layer deposition (ALD). We expected that the thin YSZ layer could have functions of electron blocking and preventing ceria from the reduction atmosphere. Yittria-doped barium zirconium (BYZ) has several orders higher proton conductivity than oxide ion conductor as YSZ and also has relatively high chemical stability. The fabrication processes of BYZ is very sophisticated, especially the synthesis of thin-film BYZ. We discussed the detailed fabrication processes of BYZ as well as the deposition of electrode. This paper discusses possible cell structure and process flow to accommodate such films.