• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.78-83
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• 2014

In this research, we evaluated the performance and characteristics of carbon supported PtM (M = Ni and Y) alloy catalysts (PtM/Cs) synthesized by a modified polyol method. With the PtM/Cs employed as a catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) of cathodes in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), their catalytic and ORR activities and electrical performance were investigated and compared with those of commercial Pt/C. Their particle sizes, particle distributions and electrochemically active surface areas (EAS) were measured by TEM and cyclic voltammetry (CV), while their ORR activity and electrical performance were explored using linear sweeping voltammetries with rotating disk electrodes and rotating ring-disk electrodes as well as PEMFC single cell tests. TEM and CV measurements show that PtM/Cs have the compatible particle size and EAS with Pt/C. When it comes to ORR activity, PtM/C showed the equivalent or better half-wave potential, kinetic current density, transferred electron number per oxygen molecule and $H_2O_2$ production(%) to or than commerical Pt/C. Based on results gained by the three electrode tests, when the PEMFC single cell tests were carried out, the current density measured at 0.6 V and maximum power density of PEMFC single cell adopting PtM/C catalysts were better than those adopting Pt/C catalyst. It is therefore concluded that PtM/C catalysts synthesized by modified polyol can result in the equivalent or better ORR catalytic capability and PEMFC performance to or than commercial Pt/C catalyst.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2016

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) using the electrolytes containing various vanadium ions in sulfuric acid as supporting solution are one of the energy storage devices in alternatively charging and discharging operation modes. The positive electrolyte contains $V^{5+}/V^{4+}$ and the negative electrolyte $V^{2+}/V^{3+}$ depending on the operation mode. To prevent the mixing of two solutions, proton exchange membranes are mainly used in VRFBs. Nafion 117 could be the most promising candidate due to the strong oxidative property of $V^{5+}$ ion, but causes high crossover of electroactive species to result in a decrease in coulombic efficiency. In this study, the composite membranes using Nafion ionomer and porous polyethylene substrate were prepared to keep good chemical stability and to decrease the cost of membranes, and were compared to the properties and performance of the commercially available electrolyte membrane, Nafion 117. As a result, the water uptake and ionic conductivity of the composite membranes increased as the thickness of the composite membranes increased, but those of Nafion 117 slightly decreased. The permeability of vanadium ions for the composite membranes significantly decreased compared to that for Nafion 117. In a single cell test for the composite membranes, the voltage efficiency decreased and the coulombic efficiency increased, finally resulting in the similar energy efficiency. In conclusion, the less cost of the composite membranes by decreasing 6.4 wt.% of the amount of perfluorinated sulfonic acid polymer due to the introduction of porous substrate and lower vanadium ion permeability to decrease self-discharge were achieved than Nafion 117.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.58-61
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• 2023

The activation process is essential for PEMFC to improve initial performance. The most commonly used activation method is a voltage change (load change) method, which may accompany degradation of the electrode catalyst if excessively performed. In many activation processes, the voltage change range is activated in a wide range from 0.4 V to OCV, and research is needed to reduce the voltage change range in order to prevent electrode catalyst degradation and shorten the activation time. Therefore, in this study, when the activation voltage range was 0.4~0.6 V, 0.4~0.8 V, and 0.4~OCV, we tried to research and develop an effective activation method by analyzing the performance and characteristics of the electrode and polymer membrane. The performance improvement was the lowest in the activation with a wide voltage range from 0.4 V to the highest OCV, and the performance decreased by 10% when activated for 56 cycles. The 0.4~0.6 V activation cycle showed the highest performance improvement up to 20% and the smallest decrease in performance due to overactivation, indicating that it is optimal method.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.627-631
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• 2012

Sodium borohydride, $NaBH_4$, shows a number of advantages as hydrogen source for portable proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The durability of Co-P-B/Cu catalyst for sodium borohydride hydrolysis reaction was studied. The effect of reaction temperature, $NaBH_4$ concentration, NaOH concentration and calcination temperature of catalyst on the durability of Co-P-B/Cu catalyst were measured. The gel formed during hydrolysis reaction affected the durability of catalyst (loss of catalyst). Formation of gel increased the loss of the catalyst. When $NaBH_4$ concentration was high and reaction temperature was higher than $60^{\circ}C$, loss of catalyst was low because gel was not formed. But under the temperature of $40^{\circ}C$, loss of catalyst increased due to gel formation When $NaBH_4$ concentration was 40 weight % and the reaction temperature was $40^{\circ}C$, the loss of catalyst increased as the NaOH concentration increased. As the calcination temperature of catalyst decreased, the loss of catalyst decreased and the activity of catalyst decreased. Calcination of the catalyst at high temperature enhanced the durability of catalyst but diminished the activity of catalyst.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.516-520
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• 2011

Sodium borohydride, $NaBH_4$, shows a number of advantages as hydrogen source for portable proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The hydrogen yield of sodium borohydride hydrolysis reaction was studied. The effect of temperature, $NaBH_4$ concentration, NaOH concentration and catalyst type on the hydrogen yield from $NaBH_4$ hydrolysis reaction were measured. The catalysts of Co-P/Cu, Co-B/Cu and Co-P-B/Cu were used in this study and there was no different effect of these catalysts on the hydrogen yield from $NaBH_4$. Under the temperature of $60^{\circ}C$, the hydrogen yield decreased as $NaBH_4$ concentration increased due to formation of gel with by-products and reactants. The gel formed during $NaBH_4$ hydrolysis reaction diminished the hydrogen evolution rate and total volume of hydrogen. Addition of NaOH stabilizer enhanced the formation of gel and then decreased the hydrogen yield.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.720-726
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• 2014

PEM fuel cell vehicles have been getting much attraction due to a sort of highly clean and effective transportation. The onboard fuel processor, however, is inevitably required to supply the hydrogen by conversion from some fuels since there are not enough available hydrogen stations nearby. A lot of studies have been focused on analyses of ATR reactor under the assumption of thermo-neutral condition and those of the optimized process for the minimization of energy consumption using thermal efficiency as an objective function, which doesn't guarantee the maximum hydrogen production. In this study, the analysis of optimization for 100 kW PEMFC onboard fuel processor was conducted targeting various fuels such as gasoline, LPG, diesel using newly defined hydrogen efficiency and keeping simply synthesized heat exchanger network regardless of external utilities leading to compactness and integration. Optimal result of gasoline case shows 9.43% reduction compared to previous study, which shows the newly defined objective function leads to better performance than thermal efficiency in terms of hydrogen production. The sensitivity analysis was also done for hydrogen efficiency, heat recovery of each heat exchanger, and the cost of each fuel. Finally, LPG was estimated as the most economical fuel in Korean market.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.643-648
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• 2010

Portable fuel cells are commonly operated in the dead-end mode because of such as high fuel utilization. However, the performance of such systems deteriorates continuously with an increase in the amount of by-products such as water vapor and nitrogen. In this study, to verify the effect of water vapor on Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs), constant-load experiments were carried out for a current density of 600 mA/cm2 and a voltage of 0.4 V, respectively. The performance of the cell was more stable under constant voltage conditions than under constant current density conditions. Condensed water accumulated in the anode channel near the cell outlet. The experimental results show how the relative humidity (RH = 0.15, 0.4 and 0.75) of air at the cathode side affect the performance of PEMFCs with dead-end anode. At RH values higher than 0.15, the mean power density increased by up to 51% and the mean purge duration decreased by up to 25% compared to the corresponding initial values.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.11-15
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• 2015

Sodium borohydride, $NaBH_4$, shows a number of advantages as hydrogen source for portable proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs). Properties of $NaBH_4$ hydrolysis reaction using unsupported Co-B, Co-P-B catalyst were studied. BET surface area of catalyst, yield of hydrogen, effect of $NaBH_4$ concentration and durability of catalyst were measured. The BET surface area of unsupported Co-B catalyst was $75.7m^2/g$ and this value was 18 times higher than that of FeCrAlloy supported Co-B catalyst. The hydrogen yield of $NaBH_4$ hydrolysis reaction by unsupported catalysts using 20~25 wt% $NaBH_4$ solution was 97.6~98.5% in batch reactor. The hydrogen yield decrease to 95.3~97.0% as the concentration of $NaBH_4$ solution increase to 30 wt%. The loss of unsupported catalyst was less than that of FeCrAlloy supported catalyst during $NaBH_4$ hydrolysis reaction and the loss increased with increasing of $NaBH_4$ concentration. In continuous reactor, hydrogen yield of $NaBH_4$ hydrolysis was 90% using 1.2 g of unsupported Co-P-B catalyst with $3{\ell}/min$ hydrogen generation rate.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2012

There are many factors to consider when attempting to improve the efficiency of fuel cell operation, such as the operation temperature, humidity, stoichiometry, operation pressure, geometric features, etc. In this paper, the effects of the operation pressure were investigated to find the current density and water saturation behavior on a cross section designated by the design geometry. A two-dimensional geometric model was established with a gas channel that can provide $H_2$ to the anode and $O_2$ and water vapor to the cathode gas diffusion layer (GDL). The results from this numerical modeling revealed that higher operation pressures would produce a higher current density than lower ones, and the water saturation behavior was different at operation pressures of 2 atm and 3 atm in the cathode GDL. In particular, the water saturation ratios are higher directly below the collector than in other areas. In addition, this paper presents the dependence of the velocity behavior in the cathode on pressure changes, and the velocity fluctuations through the GDL are higher in the output area than in inlet area. This conclusion will be utilized to design more efficient fuel cell modeling of real fuel cell operation.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.36 no.12
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• pp.1185-1192
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• 2012

The typical operating temperature of an automotive fuel cell is lower than that of an internal combustion engine, which necessitates a refined strategy for thermal management. In particular, the performance of the cooling module has to be higher for a fuel cell system because the temperature difference between the fuel cell and the surrounding is lower than in the case of the internal combustion engine. Even though the cooling system of an automotive fuel cell determines the operating temperature and temperature distribution of the fuel cell, it has attracted little research attention. This study presents the mathematical model of a cooling system for an automotive fuel cell system using Matlab/$Simulink^{(R)}$. In particular, a radiator model is developed for design optimization from the development stage to the operating stage for an automotive fuel cell. The cooling system model comprises a fan, pump, and radiator. The pump and fan model have an empirical relation, and the dynamics of the pump and fan are only explained by motor dynamics. The basic design study was conducted, and the geometric setup of the radiator was investigated. When the control logic was applied, the pump senses the coolant inlet temperature and the fan senses the coolant out temperature. Additionally, the cooling module is integrated with the fuel cell system model so that the performance of the cooling module can be investigated under realistic operating conditions.