• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.289-292
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• 2009

The fabrication method of glass bipolar plates for micro PEM fuel cell application has been established and performance evaluation has been carried out. The advantages of glass bipolar plates for micro PEM fuel cells are light weight, high chemical resistivity, and easy manufacture. The MEMS fabrication process of anisotropic wet etching, thermal & UV bonding along with metal layer deposition has been introduced. From performance evaluation, it was shown that the micro fuel cell with a metal layer deposited on the reactive area yielded higher power density than the one without it. But both power densities of the two cases showed out to be adequate with the current status of micro fuel cell technology.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.81-84
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• 2006

To investigate the characteristics of water droplet on the gas diffusion layer from both upper-view and side-view of flow channel, a rig test apparatus was designed and fabricated with L-shape acryl plate in a $1mm{\times}1mm$ micro-channel. This experimental device is used to simulate the single droplet growth and its transport process under fuel cell operating condition. As a first step, we investigated the growth and transport of single water droplet with working temperature and air flow velocity. The contact angle and its hysteresis of water droplet at departing moment are measured and analyzed. It is expected that this study can provide the basic understanding of liquid water droplet behavior in gas flow channel and GDL interface during the PEM fuel cell operation.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.563-567
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• 2009

The polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) with the advantages of low-operating temperature, high current density, low cost and volume, fast start-up ability, and suitability for discontinuous operation becomes the most reasonable and attractive power system for transportation vehicle and micro-grid power plant in a household. 200W PEM-type FCs system was integrated by this study, then the electrical characteristics and diagnosis of the fuel cell were analyzed with variations on mass flow rate and stack temperature. The ranges of the variations are 1~8L/min on $H_2$ volume and $20{\sim}70^{\circ}C$ on stack temperature.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.2385-2389
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• 2008

This is the experimental research that tries to explain a variety of RH is how to affect the cell performance and the flooding phenomenon of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). A value of PH changes to 0%, 50% and 90% as its variation, either stoichiometric flow rate changes to 1.5, 2 and 4. Into the comparison between theoretical and experimental value, this study analyzes that a variety of PH is how 10 affect flooding in the cathode of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell. The effect of air stoichiometry, air humidity and different flow fields are also discussed in this paper This study has accomplished the measurement of performance as the variety of RH in the cathode of proton exchange membrane fuel cell, moreover it has recorded the visualization of flooding in the cathode with a high-speed micro camera.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.558-559
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• 2008

본 논문은 미 일리노이 주립대 어바나-샴페인 캠퍼스에서 주로 군사용 응용 관련하여 개발 중인 마이크로 PEM 연료전지 시스템 개발에 대한 논문이다. 본 연구는 수소 저장 장치까지 포함하여 1 $mm^3$의 초소형 연료전지 시스템을 목표로 진행 중이며 본 논문은 이러한 진행 과정 중 화학적 하이드라이드 기반의 수소 발생기와 10 $mm^3$의 시스템 개발 과정에 대해 보고한다.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.12 s.255
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• pp.1196-1202
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• 2006

A MEMS methanol reformer was fabricated and its performance was evaluated in the present study. Catalytic steam reforming of methanol was selected because the process had been widely applied in macro scale reformers. Conventional Cu/ZnO catalyst that was prepared by co-precipitation method to give the highest coating quality was used. The reactor structure was made by bonding three layers of glass wafers. The internal structure of the wafer was fabricated by the wet-etching process that resulted in a high aspect ratio. The internal surface of the reactor was coated by catalyst and individual wafers were fusion-bonded to form the reactor structure. The internal volume of the microfabricated reactor was $0.3cm^3$ and the reactor produced exhaust gas with hydrogen concentration at 73%. The production rate of hydrogen was 4.16 ml/hr that could generate power of 350 mW in a typical PEM fuel cell.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.40 no.12
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• pp.1063-1069
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• 2012

In present paper, we used magnesium alloy having a lower density and higher electrical conductivity for bipolar plate to reduce the weight of PEM fuel cell. The silver was coated to prevent corrosion and form passivation film on the metal surface with sputtering. In acid proof evaluation for setting optimal coating conditions, the homogeneity of coating thickness was improved by coating with the thickness of 3 ${\mu}m$ which not indicated any micro cracks and the temperature $180^{\circ}C$. The performance test and evaluation based on the clamping pressure and channel depth to determine the configuration of bipolar plate for assembling single cell was implemented. And then we assembled single cell with this bipolar plate and implemented the performance test to ensure and compare the current-voltage performance followed as several factors such as coating or non-coating, the change of clamping pressure, the change of channel depth, etc. As these results, the maximum power density of single cell with the coated bipolar plate was 192 $mW/cm^2$ and it was confirmed that the power density per unit mass was better than existing metal bipolar plate.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.216-222
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• 2013

Durability characteristics of Gas Diffusion Layer(GDL) is one of the important issues for accomplishing commercialization of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell(PEMFC). It is strongly related to the performances of PEMFC because one of the main functions of GDL is to work as a path of fuel, air and water. When the GDL does not work on their proposed functions due to the degradation of durability, mass transfer in PEMFC is disturbed and it might cause the flooding phenomenon. Thus, investigating the durability of GDL is important and understanding the GDL degradation process is needed. In this study, electrochemical degradation with carbon corrosion is introduced. The carbon corrosion experiment is carried out with GDLs which have different MPL penetration thicknesses. After the experiment, the amount of degradation of GDL is measured with various properties of GDL such as weight, thickness and performance of the PEMFC. The degraded GDL shows loss of their properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.140-140
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• 2009

The polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) with the advantages of low-operating temperature, high current density, low cost and volume, fast start-up ability, and suitability for discontinuous operation becomes the most reasonable and attractive power system for transportation vehicle and micro-grid power plant in a household. 200W PEM-type FCs system was integrated by this study, then the electrical characteristics and diagnosis of the fuel cell were analyzed with variations on mass flow rate and stack temperature. The ranges of the variations are $20{\sim}70^{\circ}C$ on stack temperature and 1~8L/min on $H_2$ volume.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.955-965
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• 2014

Transport phenomena of reactant and product are directly linked to intrinsic inhomogeneous random configurations of catalyst layer (CL) that consist of ionomer, carbon-supported catalyst (Pt/C), and pores. Hence, electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) of Pt/C is dominated by geometrical morphology of mass transport path. Undoubtedly these ECSAs are key factor of total fuel cell efficiency. In this study, non-deterministic micro-scale CLs were randomly generated by Monte Carlo method and implemented with the percolation process. To ensure valid inference about Pt/C catalyst utilization, 600 samples were chosen as the number of necessary samples with 95% confidence level. Statistic results of 600 samples generated under particular condition (20vol% Pt/C, 30vol% ionomer, 50vol% pore, and 20nm particle diameter) reveal only 18.2%~81.0% of Pt/C can construct ECSAs with mean value of 53.8%. This study indicates that the catalyst utilization in fuel cell CLs cannot be identical notwithstanding the same design condition.