• Ceramist
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.331-348
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• 2018

With the expectation to overcome the problem of increasing energy consumption, polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells are getting more attention as a promising environmentally friendly and sustainable next-generation energy conversion system. In spite of the rapid improvement of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs), there are several critical issues still need to be resolved for practical commercialization. Out of the many issues, the main hurdle comes from oxygen reduction reaction(ORR), thus development of efficient ORR electrocatalysts is the main key for enhancing PEMFC performance. Among various catalysts, 1D nanostructured catalyst is a promising candidate because it holds many advantages that come from nanostructuring while supplementing the disadvantages of other nanostructures such as nanoparticles(0D) or gyroids(3D). This review focused on diverse 1D nanostructures and talks about their advantages as catalyst for ORR. Different 1D nanostructures will be introduced while applying the structures to different materials system showing the prospects of 1D nanostructures for improving PEMFC.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.59-64
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• 2004

The performance of fuel cell electrode depends on the characteristics of the catalyst support material. This paper deals with the use of CNF(carbon nanofibre) and CNT(carbon nanotube) as platinum catalyst support. The CNF and CNT were synthesized with catalyst treated by mechanochemical process and were prepared by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The platinum supported on CNF and CNT for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) application. In result, the best I-V characteristic was verified by the prepared MEA(membrane electrode assembly) from twisted CNF that had a diameter of 65 nm.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.9
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• pp.1563-1571
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• 2008

In this paper, dynamics modeling of a PEMFC is performed by electro-chemical equations. The developed PEMFC simulation model is implemented using MATLAB Simulink in order to design an optimal PCS for fuel cell systems. In addition, by use of the developed model as an input source of PCS, the validity of the proposed dynamic characteristic model of the PEMFC is verified by various simulation and experimental results.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.572-575
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• 2008

Flow-field design has much influence over the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) because it affects the pressure magnitude and distribution of the reactant gases. To obtain the pressure magnitude and distribution of reactant gases in four kinds of flow-field designs without additional measurement equipment, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed. After the CFD analysis, the performance values of PEMFC according to the flow-field configurations were measured via a single cell test. As expected, the pressure differences due to different flow-field configurations were related to the PEMFC performance because the actual performance results showed the same tendency as the results of the CFD analysis. A large pressure drop resulted in high PEMFC performance. So, the single serpentine configuration gave the highest performance. On the other hand, the parallel flow-field configuration gave the lowest performance because the pressure difference between inlet and outlet was the lowest.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.154-157
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• 2009

Fuel cell is spotlighted as next energy source of future. The fuel of vehicle will be changed from fossil fuel such as gasoline, diesel to hydrogen. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) will be used to fuel cell vehicle because of its suitability. PEMFCs need oxygen for cathode. Because PEMFCs in vehicle use air for oxygen, air pollutant will be effect to performance of PEMFC. In this study, we examine a type of filter and pollutant gas how can be effect to performance of fuel cell electric vehicle.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.146-152
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• 2016

A combined system with PEMFC and reformer is introduced and optimized for the real use of this kind of system in the future. The hydrogen source to operate the PEMFC system is methanol, which needs two parts of methanol reforming reaction and preferential oxidation (PROX) for the hydrogen fuel process in the combined operation PEMFC system. With the optimized methanol steam reforming condition, we tested PROX reactions in various operation temperature from 170 to 270 ℃ to investigate CO concentration data in the reformed gases. Using these different CO concentration, PEMFC performances are achieved at the combined system. Pt/C and Ru promoted Pt/C were catalysts were used for the anode to compare the stability in CO contained gases. The alloy catalyst of PtRu/C shows higher performance and better resistance to CO than the Pt/C at even high CO amount of 200 ppm, indicating a promotion not only to the activity but also to the CO tolerance. Furthermore, in a system point of view, there is a fluctuation in the PEMFC operation due to the unstable fuel supply. Therefore, we also modified the methanol reforming by a scaled up reactor and pressurization to produce steady operation of PEMFC. The optimized system with the methanol reformer and PEMFC shows a stable performance for a long time, which is providing a valuable data for the PEMFC commercialization.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.205-215
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• 2024

This study introduced a direct contact heat exchanger to enhance the efficiency of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) systems. According to previous research, 28% of the operating costs of fuel cell systems are attributed to heat exchanger devices, prompting the design of a direct contact heat exchanger to address this issue. Optimal configurations were determined through computational fluid dynamics analysis and experimental device fabrication, and the enhanced heat exchange performance of the heat exchanger was experimentally confirmed. Through this, the contribution of the direct contact heat exchanger to the heat management and efficiency enhancement of PEMFC systems was established.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.9
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• pp.1706-1713
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• 2009

In this paper, a parallel operation algorithm for high power PEMFC generation systems is proposed. According to increasing the capacity of fuel cell systems with several fuel cell stacks, the different dynamic characteristics of each fuel cell stack effect on imbalance of load sharing and current distribution, so that a robust parallel operation algorithm is desired. Therefore, a power-sharing technique is developed and explained in order to design an optimal distributed PEMFC generation system. In addition, an optimal controller design procedure for the proposed parallel operation algorithm is introduced, along with informative simulations and experimental results.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.156-165
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• 2017

This study quantitatively assessed the environmental impacts of fuel cell (FC) systems by performing life cycle assessment (LCA) and analyzed their energy efficiencies based on energy return on investment (EROI) and electrical energy stored on investment (ESOI). Molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) system and polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system were selected as the fuel cell systems. Five different paths to produce hydrogen ($H_2$) as fuel such as natural gas steam reforming (NGSR), centralized naptha SR (NSR(C)), NSR station (NSR(S)), liquified petroleum gas SR (LPGSR), water electrolysis (WE) were each applied to the FCs. The environmental impacts and the energy efficiencies of the FCs were compared with rechargeable batteries such as $LiFePO_4$ (LFP) and Nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH). The LCA results show that MCFC_NSR(C) and PEMFC_NSR(C) have the lowest global warming potential (GWP) with 6.23E-02 kg $CO_2$ eq./MJ electricity and 6.84E-02 kg $CO_2$ eq./MJ electricity, respectively. For the impact category of abiotic resource depletion potential (ADP), MCFC_NGSR(S) and PEMFC_NGSR(S) show the lowest impacts of 7.42E-01 g Sb eq./MJ electricity and 7.19E-01 g Sb eq./MJ electricity, respectively. And, the energy efficiencies of the FCs are higher than those of the rechargeable batteries except for the case of hydrogen produced by WE.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.201-203
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• 2007

본 논문에서는, 연료전지 시스템의 기계적 주변장치 (MBOP)와 전기적 주변장치 (EBOP)의 최적 설계를 위해서 PEMFC 스택을 전기화학반응을 기초로 모델링한다. 모델링을 위해 기본적인 PEMFC의 구조와 동작 원리를 설명한다. 연료전지의 이론적 최고 전압인 평형전위를 깁스 자유에너지와 네른스트 방정식으로 유도한다. 전류밀도에 따른 전압 손실인 활성화, 저항, 농도 분극현상을 표현하기 위해서 수식을 유도한다. 수소가 이온화되지 못하고 산소극으로 넘어가서 발생되는 연료손실 및 내부전류와 지속적인 정역반응인 교환전류도 모델링된다. 평형전압에서 각 분극을 뺀 실제 운전 전압을 시뮬레이션하고, 유량과 압력에 따른 출력 특성을 시뮬레이션 한다. 부하변동 시 출력특성을 시뮬레이터와 실험결과로 비교한다.