• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.22-29
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• 2004

Deformation of the porous media has influence on performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). The stress distributions and deformation of the porous media are major factors for safe and efficient operation in the PEMFC. In this paper, nonlinear contact analysis of air plate and porous media is performed under a working condition to predict the performance characteristics of the air plates. Two kinds of models are suggested for this study. The first porous media model has nonlinear material properties. The second model has nonlinear material properties with contact condition between porous media and air plate. The numerical analysis results of the two models are somewhat different. It is shown that the nonlinear contact analysis is required for the design study of the PEMFC.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.258-265
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• 2006

In this paper, an active clamping sepic-flyback converter has been proposed, which is suitable for a fuel cell based power generation system. The proposed converter is superposition of sepic converter mode and flyback mode. It has outstanding high boosting output voltage, component utilization and high efficiency characteristics under the inherently severe low output voltage of the fuel cell generator. In this paper, the validity of the proposed converter has been verified by the informative simulation and experimental results that make used of the PEMFC.

• 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.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.239-242
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• 2005

고분자 전해질형 연료전지에서는 수소이온의 이온전도성 저하를 방지하기 위하여 외부에서 가습하여 주는 방식이 일반적이지만, 가습에 소요되는 부품을 일부라도 제거할 경우 연료전지의 효율은 높이고 제작단가도 경감할 수 있다. 이를 위하여 저가습 및 무가습 실험을 수행하였으며, 정확한 data의 수집과 시험장비의 자동제어를 위하여 National Instrument사의 compact field point (cFP)를 사용하였다. 무가습 실험 중 stack의 안정성 측면을 고려하기 위하여 수소연료가 부족하거나 갑작스런 voltage drop이 발생할 경우 LabVIEW logic에 의한 stack 보호용 자동차단 시스템을 구현하였다. Humidifier와 heater의 온도를 조절하여 공급유체의 상대습도 및 온도를 각각 조절하였으며, 이에 필요한 이론적 온도는 Antoine equation을 사용하여 산정하였다. Anode와 cathode 양측 $100\%$ 가습 경우를 기준으로 가습량을 조절하면서 실험을 수행하였으며 성능 차이를 그래프로 도시하여 양측의 변화에 대한 영향을 볼 수 있도록 하였다. Stack의 온도가 $70^{\circ}C$이고 양측 무가습일 경우에 성능 측정이 불가능하여 stack의 온도를 저온에서부터 변화시키면서 무가습 성능을 실시간으로 측정하여 보았다 일반적으로 hydronium ion은 anode측에서 cathode측으로 계속 이동하여야 전기를 생성할 수 있으므로 cathode측 무가습이 anode측 무가습보다 성능이 더 잘 나오는 것으로 예측하였으나 이와 반대되는 경향의 실험 결과를 얻었다. Anode측 무가습과 cathode측 무가습의 standard deviation은 anode 무가습일 경우가 크게 발생하였고 양측 무가습일 경우는 stack의 온도가 높을수록 크게 관찰되었다. 이와 같은 현상은 공기중의 상대습도와 back diffusion등에 영향을 받을 수 있으므로 각종 변수들의 영향을 분리하여 관찰할 수 있는 실험을 수행중에 있다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.326-329
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• 2005

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) should be sufficiently hydrated with proper water management to maintain a good ionic conductivity and performance of a PEM fuel cell. However. cathode flooding resulting from excess water can impede the transport of reactants and hence deteriorate the fuel cell performance. For the PEM fuel cell to be commercially viable as vehicle or portable applications, the flooding on the cathode side should be minimized during the fuel cell operation. In this study, visualization technique was applied to understand the cathode flooding phenomena on the cathode side of a PEM fuel cell. To this end. a transparent PEM unit fuel cell wi th an act ive area of $25cm^2$ was designed and manufactured to allow for the visualization of cathode channel with performance characteristics. Two-phase flow resulting from the electro-chemical reaction of fuel cell was investigated experimentally. The images photographed by CCD camera with cell operating temperatures $(30\~50^{\circ}C)$ were presented. Results indicated that the flooding on the cathode side first occurs near the exit of cathode channel. As the operating temperature of fuel cell increases. it was found that liquid water droplets tend to evaporate easily and it can have an influence on lowering the flooding level. It is expected that this study can effectively contribute to the detailed researches on modeling water transport of an operating PEM fuel cell including two-phase flow phenomena.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.46-52
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• 2010

Membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have been extensively studied to improve their initial performance as well as their durability and to facilitate the commercialization of fuel cell technology. To improve the MEA performance, particularly at low Pt loadings, many approaches have been made. In the present study, MEA performance improvement was performed by adding $TiO_2$ particles into the catalyst layer of MEA. Most of previous studies have focused on the MEA performance enhancement under low humidity conditions by adding metal oxides into the catalyst layer mainly due to the water keeping ability of those metal oxides particles such as $Al_2O_3$, $SiO_2$ and zeolites. However, this study mainly focused on the improvement of MEA performance under fully humidified normal conditions. In this study, the MEA was prepared by decal method aiming for a continuous MEA fabrication process. The decal process can make very thin and uniform catalyst layer on the surface of electrolyte membrane resulting in very low interfacial resistance between catalyst layer and the membrane surface and uniform electrode structure in the MEA. It was found that the addition of $TiO_2$ particles into the catalyst layer made by decal method can minimize water flooding in the catalyst layer, resulting in the improvement of MEA performance.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.33-36
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• 2008

The transient behavior of a passive air breathing direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) operated on vapor-feeding mode is studied in this paper. It generally takes 30 minutes after starting for the cell response to come to its steady-state and the response is sometimes unstable. A mathematical dynamic one-dimensional model for simulating transient response of the DMFC is presented. In this model a DMFC is decomposed into its subsystems using lumped model and divided into five layers, namely the anodic diffusion layer, the anodic catalyst layer, the proton exchange membrane (PEM), the cathodic catalyst layer and the cathodic diffusion layer. All layers are considered to have finite thickness, and within every one of them a set of differential-algebraic governing equations are given to represent multi-components mass balance, such as methanol, water, oxygen and carbon dioxide, charge balance, the electrochemical reaction and mass transport phenomena. A one-dimensional, isothermal and mass transport model is developed that captures the coupling between water generation and transport, oxygen consumption and natural convection. The single cell is supplied by pure methanol vapor from a methanol reservoir at the anode, and the oxygen is supplied via natural air-breathing at the cathode. The water is not supplied from external source because the cell uses the water created at the cathode using water back diffusion through nafion membrane. As a result of simulation strong effects of water transport were found out. The model analysis provides several conclusions. The performance drop after peak point is caused by insufficiency of water at the anode. The excess water at the cathode makes performance recovery impossible. The undesired crossover of the reactant methanol through the PEM causes overpotential at the cathode and limits the feeding methanol concentration.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.101-104
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• 2006

Water management is considered to be one of the main issues to be addressed for the performance improvement of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. For good water management, the detailed information on the water distribution inside an operating PEM fuel cell should be available to main an adequate level of hydration in the PEM While avoiding performance decline due to liquid rater flooding. For the PEM fuel cell to be commercially viable as vehicle applications, the flooding on the cathode side should be minimized during the fuel ceil operation. In this study to investigate cathode flooding and its relation with temperature distribution in flow channels, visualization study was performed on the cathode side of a PEM fuel cell. For the direct visualization of temperature field and water transport in cathode flow channels, a transparent cell was designed and manufactured using quartz window. Water transport and its two-phase flow characteristics in flow channels were investigated experimentally. Also, the visualization of temperature distribution In cathode flow channels was made by using IR camera. Results indicated that the temperature rise near the exit of cathode flow channel was found. It is found that this area corresponds to the flooding area from both temperature and flooding visualization results It is expected that this study can effectively contribute to get the detailed data on water transport linked with heat management during the operation of a PEM fuel cell

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.02a
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• pp.263-263
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• 2013

This work examines the dynamic properties of ice surfaces in vacuum for the temperature range of 140~180 K, which extends over the onset temperatures for ice sublimation and the phase transition from amorphous to crystallization ice. In particular, the study focuses on the transport processes of excess protons and chloride ions in ice and their segregative behavior to the ice surface. These phenomena were studied by conducting experiments with a relatively thick (~100 BL) ice film constructed with a bottom $H_2O$ layer and an upper $D_2O$ layer, with excess hydronium and chloride ions trapped at the $H_2O$/$D_2O$ interface as they were generated by the ionization of hydrogen chloride. The migration of protons, chloride ions, and water molecules to the ice film surface and their H/D exchange reactions were measured as a function of temperature using the methods of low energy sputtering (LES) and Cs+ reactive ion scattering (RIS). Temperature programmed desorption (TPD) experiments monitored the desorption of water and hydrogen chloride from the surface. Our observations indicated that both hydronium and chloride ions migrated from the interfacial layer to segregate to the surface at high temperature. Hydrogen chloride gas desorbs via recombination reaction of hydronium and chloride ions floating on the surface. Surface segregation of these species is driven by thermodynamic potential gradient present near the ice surface, whereas in the bulk, their transport is facilitated by thermal diffusion process. The finding suggests that chlorine activation reactions of hydrogen chloride for polar stratospheric ice particles occur at the surface of ice within a depth of at most a few molecular layers, rather than in the bulk phase.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.107-128
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• 2017

Energy is a major component of almost all economic, production, and service activities, and rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization have led to ever growing demand for energy. Limited energy resources and increasingly evident environmental effects of fossil fuel consumption has led to a growing awareness about the importance of further use of renewable energy sources in the countries energy portfolio. Renewable hydrogen production is a convenient method for storage of unstable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy for use in other place or time. In this study, suitability of 25 cities located in Iran's western region for renewable hydrogen production are evaluated by multi-criteria decision making techniques including TOPSIS, VIKOR, ELECTRE, SAW, Fuzzy TOPSIS, and also hybrid ranking techniques. The choice of suitable location for the centralized renewable hydrogen production is associated with various technical, economic, social, geographic, and political criteria. This paper describes the criteria affecting the hydrogen production potential in the study region. Determined criteria are weighted with Shannon entropy method, and Angstrom model and wind power model are used to estimate respectively the solar and wind energy production potential in each city and each month. Assuming the use of proton exchange membrane electrolyzer for hydrogen production, the renewable hydrogen production potential of each city is then estimated based on the obtained wind and solar energy generation potentials. The rankings obtained with MCDMs show that Kermanshah is the best option for renewable hydrogen production, and evaluation of renewable hydrogen production capacities show that Gilangharb has the highest capacity among the studied cities.