• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.279-285
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• 2006

Recirculation for the unreacted fuel is necessary to improve the overall efficiency of the fuel cell system and to prevent fuel starvation since the fuel cell for a vehicle application is a closed system. In case of the automotive fuel cell, the ejector which does not require any parasitic power is good for the performance improvement and easy operation. It is essential to design the customized ejector due to the lack of the commercial ejector corresponding to the operating conditions of the fuel cell systems. In this study, the design methodology for the ejector customized to an automotive fuel cell is proposed. The model based sensitivity analysis prevents the time-consuming redesign and reduces the cost of developing ejector. As a result, the customized ejector to meet the desired performance within overall operating range has developed for the PEMFC automotive system.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.678-685
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• 2011

An Ejector enhances system efficiency, are easily operated, have a mechanically simple structure, and do not require a power supply. Because of these advantages, the ejector has been applied to a variety of industrial fields such as refrigerators, power plants and oil plants. In this work, an ejector was used to safely recycle anode tail gas in a 75-kW Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) system at KEPCO Research Institute. In this system, the ejector is placed at mixing point between the anode tail gas and the cathode tail gas or the fresh air. Commercial ejectors are not designed for the actual operating conditions for our fuel cell system. A new ejector was therefore designed for use beyond conventional operating limits. In the first place, a few sample ejectors were manufacured and the entrainment ratio was measured at a dummy stack. Through this experiment, the optimum ejector was chosen. The 75-kW MCFC system equipped with this optimum ejector was operated successfully.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.318-322
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• 2009

Supersonic ejectors are simple mechanical components, which generally perform mixing and/or recompression of two fluid streams. Ejectors have found many applications in engineering. In aerospace engineering, they are used for altitude testing of a propulsion system by reducing the pressure of a test chamber. It is composed of three major sections: a vacuum test chamber, a propulsive nozzle, and a supersonic exhaust diffuser. This paper aims at the improvement of ejector-diffuser performance by focusing attention on reducing exhaust back flow into the test chamber, since alteration of the backflow or recirculation pattern appears as one of the potential means of significantly improving low supersonic ejector-diffuser performance. The simplest backflow-reduction device was an orifice plate at the duct inlet, which would pass the jet and entrained fluid but impede the movement of fluid upstream along the wall. Results clearly showed that the performance of ejector-diffuser system was improved for certain a range of system pressure ratios, where as there was no appreciable transition in the performance for lower pressure ratios and the orifice plate was detrimental to the ejector performance for higher pressure ratios. It is found that an appropriately sized orifice system should produce considerable improvement in the ejector-diffuser performance in the intended range of pressure ratios.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.321-325
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• 2010

Supersonic ejectors are simple mechanical components, which generally perform mixing and/or recompression of two fluid streams. Ejectors have found many applications in engineering. In aerospace engineering, they are used for altitude testing of a propulsion system by reducing the pressure of a test chamber. It is composed of three major sections: a vacuum test chamber, a propulsive nozzle, and a supersonic exhaust diffuser. This paper aims at the improvement of ejector-diffuser performance by focusing attention on reducing exhaust back flow into the test chamber, since alteration of the backflow or recirculation pattern appears as one of the potential means of significantly improving low supersonic ejector-diffuser performance. The simplest backflow-reduction device was an orifice plate at the duct inlet, which would pass the jet and entrained fluid but impede the movement of fluid upstream along the wall. Results clearly showed that the performance of ejector-diffuser system was improved for certain a range of system pressure ratios, whereas the orifice plate was detrimental to the ejector performance for higher pressure ratios. It is also found that there is no change in the performance of diffuser with orifice at its inlet, in terms of its pressure recovery. Hence an appropriately sized orifice system should produce considerable improvement in the ejector-diffuser performance in the intended range of pressure ratios.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.640-646
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• 2011

Dissolved oxygen (DO) refers to the volume of oxygen that is contained in water, and is a major indicator of water quality. The objective of this paper was to investigate the effect of salinity on the dissolved oxygen characteristics in an ejector-aerator. An experimental aeration system composed of a motor-pump, an ejector, a motor-blower, a set of aeration and recirculation tank and a control panel. The dissolved oxygen concentrations decreased with the water salinity. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient increased with increasing the water salinity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.680-685
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• 2008

The ejector is a simple device which can transport a low-pressure secondary flow by using a high-pressure primary flow. In general, it consists of a primary driving nozzle, a mixing section, and a diffuser. The ejector system entrains the secondary flow through a shear action generated by the primary jet. Until now, a large number of researches have been made to design and evaluate the ejector systems, where it is assumed that the ejector system has an infinite secondary chamber which can supply mass infinitely. However, in almost all of the practical applications, the ejector system has a finite secondary chamber implying steady flow can be possible only after the flow inside ejector has reached an equilibrium state after the starting process. To the authors' best knowledge, there are no reports on the starting characteristics of the ejector systems and none of the works to date discloses the detailed flow process until the secondary chamber flow reaches an equilibrium state. The objective of the present study is to investigate the starting process of an ejector-diffuser system. The present study is also planned to identify the operating range of ejector-diffuser systems where the steady flow assumption can be applied without uncertainty. The results obtained show that the one and only condition in which an infinite mass entrainment is possible is the generation of a recirculation zone near the primary nozzle exit. The flow in the secondary chamber attains a state of dynamic equilibrium at this point.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.303-311
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• 2019

Reversible solid oxide fuel cell (RSOFC) has become a prospective device for energy storage and hydrogen production. Many studies have been conducted around the world focusing on system efficiency improvement and realization. The system should have not only high efficiency but also a certain level of simplicity for stable operation. External waste steam utilization was proved to remarkably increase the efficiency at solid oxide electrolysis system. In this study, RSOFC system coupled with waste steam was proposed and optimized in term of simplicity and efficiency. Ejector for fuel recirculation is selected due to its simple design and high stability. Three system configurations using ejector for fuel recirculation were investigated for performance of design condition. In parametric study, the system efficiencies at different current density were analyzed. The system configurations were simulated using validated lumped model in EBSILON(R) program. The system components, balance of plants, were designed to work in both electrolysis and fuel cell modes, and their off-design characteristics were taken into account. The base case calculation shows that, the system with suction pump results in slightly lower efficiency but stack can be operated more stable with same inlet pressure of fuel and air electrode.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2009

An ejector is a machine utilized for mixing fluid, maintaining a vacuum, and transporting fluid. The Ejector enhances system efficiency, are easily operated, have a mechnically simple structure, and do not require a power supply. Because of these advantages, the ejector has been applied to a variety of industrial fields such as refrigerators, power plants and oil plants. In this work, an ejector was used to safely recycle anode tail gas in a 5 kW Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell system at KEPRI(Korea Electric Power Research Institute). In this system, the ejector is placed at mixing point between the anode tail gas and the cathode tail gas or the fresh air. Commercial ejectors are not designed for the actual operating conditions for our fuel cell system. A new ejector was therefore designed for use beyond conventional operating limits. In this study, the entrainment ratio is measured according to the diametrical ratio of nozzle to throat in the designed ejector. This helps to define important criteria of ejectors for MCFC recycling.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.299-302
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• 2009

The objective of the present study is to analyze the transient flow through theejector system with the help of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. An attempt is made to investigate the interesting and conflicting phenomenon of the infinite entrainment into the primary stream without an infinite mass supply from the secondary chamber. The results obtained show that the one and only condition in which an infinite mass entrainment can be possible in such types of ejectors is the generation of a re-circulation zone near the primary nozzle exit. The flow in the secondary chamber attains a state of dynamic equilibrium of pressures at the onset of the recirculation zone. A steady flow in the ejector system is valid only after this point.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.353-356
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• 2009

A pivotal mechanical balance of plant for 75kW class molten carbonate fuel cells comprise of a catalytic burner and an ejector which has been designed and tested in KEPRI(Korea Electric Power Research Institute). The catalytic burner, which oxidizes residual fuel in the anode tail gas, was operated at several conditions. Some problems arose due to local overheating or auto-ignition, which could limit the catalyst life. The catalytic burner was designed by considering both gas mixing and gas velocity. Test results showed that the temperature distribution is very uniform. In addition, an ejector is a fluid machinery to be utilized for mixing fluids, maintaining vacuum, and transporting them. The ejector is placed at mixing point between the anode off gas and the cathode off gas or the fresh air Several ejectors were designed and tested to form a suction on the fuel tail gas and balance the differential pressures between anode and cathode over a range of operating conditions. The tests showed that the design of the nozzle and throat played an important role in balancing the anode tail and cathode inlet gas pressures. The 75kW MCFC system built in our ejector and catalytic burner was successfully operated from Novembe, 2008 to April, 2009. It recorded the voltage of 104V at the current of 754A and reached the maximum generating power of 78.5kW DC. The results for both stand-alone and integration into another balance of plant are discussed.