• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.352-359
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• 2005

This work has studied the changes of pH in both of anodic and cathodic chambers of a divided cell due to the electrolytic split of water during the ammonia decomposition to nitrogen, and has studied the continuous decomposition characteristics of ammonia in a multi-cell stacked electrolyzer. The electrolytic decomposition of ammonia was much affected by the change of pH of ammonia solution which was caused by the water split reactions. The water split reaction occurred at pH of less than 8 in the anodic chamber with producing proton ions, and occurred at pH of more than 11 in the cathodic chamber with producing hydroxyl ions. The pH of the anodic chamber using an anion exchange membrane was sustained to be higher than that using a cation exchange membrane, which resulted in the higher decomposition of ammonia in the anodic chamber. By using the electrolytic characteristics of the divided cell, a continuous electrolyzer with a self-pH adjustment function was newly devised, where a portion of the ammonia solution from a pHadjustment tank was circulated through the cathodic chambers of the electrolyzer. It enhanced the pH of the ammonia solution fed from the pH-adjustment tank into the anodic chambers of the electrolyzer, which caused a higher decomposition yield of ammonia. And then, based on the electrolyzer, a salt-free ammonia decomposition process was suggested. In that process, ammonia solution could be continuously decomposed into the environmentally-harmless nitrogen gas up to 83％, when chloride ion was added into the ammonia solution.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.625-632
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• 2012

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the cathode channel flooding effects at different stoichiometries in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells by using visualization techniques. The phenomena of liquid water formation and removal caused by current variations were also examined experimentally. Tests were conducted at cathode stoichiometries of 1.5 and 2.0, and the anode stoichiometry was fixed at 1.5. It is found that at an air-side stoichiometry of 2.0, liquid water begins to form and the flooding occurs faster than at an air-side stoichiometry of 1.5. Also, when the air-side stoichiometry of 1.5 is maintained, the dry-out phenomena is observed in the dry-out area 7.8 A following the field of flooding. Thus, a stoichiometry of 1.5 produced better performance in terms of membrane electrode assembly (MEA) durability and hydrogen ion conductivity than did a stoichiometry of 2.0, in which dry-out occurs beyond 8A.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.32 no.spc3
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• pp.275-281
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• 2012

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) are the most appropriate for energy source of small robot applications. PEMFC has superior in power density and thermodynamic efficiency as compared with the Direct Methaol Fuel Cell (DMFC). Furthermore, PEMFC has lighter weight and smaller size than DMFC which are very important factors as small robot power system. The most significant factor of mobile robots is weight which relates closely with energy consumption and robot operation. This research tried to find optimum specifications in terms of type, number of cell, active area, cooling method, weight, and size. In order to find optimum 500W PEMFC, six options are designed in this paper and studied to reduce total stack weight by applying new materials and design innovations. However, still remaining problems are thermal management, robot space for energy sources, and soon. For a thermal management, design options need to analysis of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for determining which option has the improved performance and durability.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.39-45
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• 2013

The water management is one of the key issues in low operating temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The gas diffusion layer (GDL) allows the reactant gases flow to the reaction sites of the catalyst layer (CL). At high current density, generated water forms droplets because the normal operating temperature is $60{\sim}80^{\circ}C$. If liquid water is not evacuated properly, the pores in the GDL will be blocked and the performance will be reduced severely. In this study, the microchannel GDL was proposed to solve the flooding problem. The liquid water transport through 3-D constructed conventional GDL and microchannel GDL was analyzed varying air velocity, water velocity, and contact angle. The simulation results showed that the liquid water was evacuated rapidly through the microchannel GDL because of the lower flow resistance. Therefore, the microchannel GDL was efficient to remove liquid water in the GDL and gas channels.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.6-10
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• 2016

Until a recent day, degradation of PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells) has been mainly studied in unit cell. But operation and degradation of real PEMFC going along in stack instead of unit cell. Therefore in this work, ADT (Accelerated Degradation Test) of PEMFC was done in stack and the result from stack's test was compared with that of unit cell. The polymer electrolyte membrane was degraded by repeated electrochemical and mechanical degradation method among several ADT methods. Current densities of MEA at 0.6V decreased in stack and unit cell, 28.4% and 27.8% respectively after ADT for 312 hours. Hydrogen crossover current densities of membrane increased in stack and unit cell, 16.8% and 15.2% respectively after ADT for 312 hours. The result of ADT in stack was similar that of ADT in unit cell, which showed that ADT method of unit cell was available to the stack.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.767-773
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• 2013

This study suggested the variations of porosity and gas permeability of gas diffusion layers (GDLs), which are easily deformed among the components of a highly compressed PEMFC stack. The volume change owing to compression was measured experimentally, and the variations in the porosity and gas permeability were estimated using correlations published in previous literature. The effect of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) which is added to the GDLs to enhance water discharge was investigated on the variations of porosity and gas permeability. The gas permeability which strongly affects the mass transport through GDL, decreases sharply with increasing compression when the GDL has high PTFE loading. As a result, the mass transport through the pore network of GDL can be changed considerably according to the PTFE loading even with the same clamping force. The accuracy of modeling of transport phenomena through GDL can be improved due to the enhanced correlations developed based on the results of this study.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.346-347
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• 2012

최근 화석연료 대체 에너지원으로서 자동차용으로 연구 개발 및 응용되고 있는 고분자 전해질 연료전지(PEMFC: Proton exchange membrane fuel cells)에서 분리판(Bipolar Plate)은 스택 전체 무게의 80%, 스택 가격의 60% 정도로 가장 높은 비중을 차지한다. 분리판은 연료와 산화제를 공급해주는 통로 및 전지 운전 중에 생성된 물을 제거하는 통로 역할과 anode, cathode로서 전극 역할을 통해 스택 전력을 형성하는 핵심 기능과 전지와 전지 사이의 지지대 역할을 한다. 따라서 분리판은 전기전도성, 내부식성 및 기계적 특성이 우수해야함은 물론이고, 얇고 가벼우며 가공성이 뛰어나야 한다. 현재 가장 많이 사용되고 있는 금속 분리판 소재 중 스테인리스 스틸은 전기적, 기계적 특성 및 내부식성이 우수한 반면, 가격이 비싸고, 중량이 무거운 단점이 있다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 DC 반응성 마그네트론 스퍼터링법으로 전기적, 기계적 특성 및 내부 식성이 우수한 TiN, TiCN 박막을 스테인리스에 비해 중량이 1/3, 소재 단가가 1/4인 알루미늄 기판 위에 증착하여 박막 물성을 평가하였다. DC Power는 400 W, 기판과 타겟 사이의 거리는100 mm, 공정 압력은 0.5 Pa로 고정하였고, 3 inch의 지름과 순도 99.95%를 갖는 티타늄 타겟을 사용하였다. 공정 가스는 Ar을 주입하였으며, 질소와 탄소의 공급원으로는 질소($N_2$)와 메탄($CH_4$) 가스를 사용하여 챔버 내 주입혼합가스의 전체 유량을 50 sccm으로 고정시켰다. 증착된 박막의 전기적, 기계적 특성을 측정하였고, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM)을 이용하여 박막의 미세구조 및 표면 상태를 확인하였다. 또한, 내부식 특성을 평가하기 위해 potentiostatic, potentiodynamic 법을 이용하여 박막의 부식저항을 측정하였다. 증착된 TiN 박막의 경우 질소 함량의 증가에 따라 박막 증착속도는 감소하는 경향을 보였다. 이는 타겟 부근의 질소 라디칼 비율이 증가함에 따라 질화반응이 촉진된 것으로 생각된다. 또한, 증착된 TiN과 TiCN 박막은 반응성 질소 유량과 탄소 유량에 따라 각각 다른 미세구조를 가지는 것을 확인하였다. TiN과 TiCN은 NaCl형의 면심입방격자(FCC)로 같은 구조이며, 격자상수가 비슷하여 전율고용되어 TiCN을 형성하고, 탄소와 질소의 비에 따라 전기적 기계적 특성이 달라짐을 확인하였다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.77.1-77.1
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• 2010

Durability problems of gas diffusion layer(GDL) is one of the important issues for accomplishing commercialization of proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC). GDL is strongly related to the performance of PEMFC because one of the main function of GDL is to work as a path of fuel, air and water. When the GDL is degraded, it causes water balance problems such as the flooding phenomenon. Thus, investigating the durability characteristics of the GDL is important and understanding the GDL degradation process is needed. In this study, the GDLs are degraded by carbon corrosion stress method which is the electrochemical degradation mode. To determine the effects of carbon corrosion of the GDL, 1.45 V of potential is imposed for 96 hours. In this manner, in the previous research, the structure between the substrate and the MPL is weaken. Further investigations are needed to clarify this phenomenon. Therefore, in this study, the carbon corrosion stress method is carried out with GDLs which have various MPL penetration levels and the effects of the MPL penetration level on the characteristics change of the GDL are analyzed. The changes in characteristics are measured with various properties of GDL such as weight, thickness and static contact angle. The degraded GDL shows loss of their properties.

• Clean Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2004

Direct methanol fuel cell(DMFC) with proton exchange membrane (PEM) has advantages over the conventional power source (e.g. vehicle). DMFC, however, has a problem to be solved such as methanol crossover, high anodic overpotential and limiting current density, etc. The physicochemical phenomena in DMFC can be described by coupled PDEs (partial differential equations), which can be solved by a PDE solver. In this paper, we utilized a commercial software FEMLAB to solve the PDEs. The FEMLAB is one of the software programs available which are developed as a solver for building physics problems based on PDEs and is designed to simulate systems of coupled PDEs which may be 1D, 2D, 3D, non-liner and time dependent. We performed simulation using the Tafel equation as an electrochemical reaction model to analyze methanol concentration profile in DMFC system. We confirm that the rapid decrease of methanol concentration at anodic catalyst layer with the increase of the current density is a main reason of the low performance in DMFC through simulation results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.11
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• pp.689-695
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• 2016

The performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) is strongly related to the water flow and accumulation in the gas diffusion layer (GDL) and catalyst layer. Understanding the behavior of fluid from the characteristics of the media is crucial for the improvement of the performance and design of the GDL. In this paper, a numerical method is proposed to calculate the design parameters of the GDL, i.e., permeability, tortuosity, and effective diffusivity. The fluid flow in a channel filled with randomly packed hard spheres is simulated to validate the method. The flow simulation was performed by lattice Boltzmann method with bounce back condition for the solid volume fraction in the porous media, with different values of porosities. Permeability, which affects the flow, was calculated from the average pressure drop and the velocity in the porous media. Tortuosity, calculated by the ratio the average path length of the randomly injected massless particles to the thickness of the porous media, and the resultant effective diffusivity were in good agreement with the theoretical model. The suggested method can be used to calculate the parameters of real GDL accurately without any modification.