• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2000.07b
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• pp.687-689
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• 2000

Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) with high electrical efficiency and low environmental effect has been developed for the commercial application of power generation fields. Recently we have built a 25 kW molten carbonate fuel cell power generation system and tested it. The MCFC system is composed of diverse peripheral units such as reformer, pre-heater, water purifier. electrical loader, gas supplier, and recycling systems. The stack itself was made of 40 cells of $6.000 cm^2$ area each. The stack showed an output of 28.6 kW power and a reliable performance at atmospheric operation. while in pressurized operation the stack showed an output 25.6 kW lower than the atmospheric operation. The reason of lower performance of pressurized operation was caused from a gas cross over shown in few cells in the stack.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.101-104
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• 2007

Mechanical behavior in metal bipolar plate of a fuel cell stack was studied using finite element analysis. The fuel stack is essentially composed of a metal bipolar plate (metal BP), a gasket, an end plate, a membrane electrolyte assembly (MEA), and a gas diffusion layer (GDL). It is important to maintain a suitable fastening force of Metal BP, because it influences the power efficiency of the fuel cell stack. After a gasket and a GDL are placed on the metal BP, the reaction force with the displacement is measured. The channel of metal bipolar plate is replaced by a simple geometrical plate. The results of FEM are similar to those of experiment. Therefore mechanical behavior in metal BP of a fuel cell stack can be estimated by using FEM.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.11 no.1 s.34
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• pp.51-54
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• 2007

78-cell proton exchange membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) stack with an effective electrode area of $295cm^{2}$ were investigated its operational characteristics and effects of CO poisoning. When power output, 5.4 kW, was released at current density of $325mA/cm^{2}$ for 6 hours, stablility of each cell was showed the small deviation of 2.3%. Carbon monoxide is a conventional contaminant in the fuel obtained from reforming processes with an important influence on the performance of the PEMFC. The studies of continuous injection of CO presented (5-20 ppm) with the time gave information about poisoning and recovery processes of the stack.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.641-648
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• 2011

KEPRI (KEPCO Research Institute) designed and operated the lab-scale high temperature electrolysis (HTE) system for hydrogen production with $10{\times}10cm^2$ 5-cell stack at $750^{\circ}C$. The electrolysis cell consists of Ni-YSZ steam/hydrogen electrode, YSZ electrolyte and LSCF based perovskite as air side electrode. The active area of one cell is 92.16 $cm^2$. The hydrogen production system was operated for 2664 hours and the performance of electrolysis stack was measured by means of current variation with from 6 A to 28 A. The maximum hydrogen production rate and current efficiency was 47.33 NL/hr and 80.90% at 28 A, respectively. As the applied current increased, hydrogen production rate, current efficiency and the degradation rate of stack were increased respectively. From the result of stack performance, optimum operation current of this system was 24 A, considering current efficiencies and cell degradations.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.197-204
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• 2008

DMFC(Direct Methanol Fuel Cell) is one of promising candidates for power sources of small mobile IT devices like notebook, cell phone, and so on. Efficient operation of fuel cell system is very important for long-sustained power supply because of limited fuel tank size. It is necessary to investigate operation characteristics of fuel cell stack for optimal control of DMFC system. The generated voltage was modeled according to various operating condition; methanol concentration, stack temperature, and load current. It is inevitable for methanol solution at anode to cross over to cathode through MEA(membrane electrode assembly), which reduces the system efficiency and increases fuel consumption. In this study, optimal operation conditions are proposed by analyzing stack performance model, cross-over phenomenon, and system efficiency.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.31-39
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• 2023

Salinity gradient energy can be generated from a mixture of water streams with different salt concentrations by using reverse electrodialysis (RED). In this study, we evaluated the effect of stack size and number of cell pairs on the energy efficiency and specific energy of the RED process. Additionally, we studied the prementioned parameters to maximize the power density of RED. The performance of the RED stack which used a patterned ion exchange membrane, was evaluated as a function of stack size and feed flow rate. Moreover, it was noted that an increase in stack size increased the ion movement through the ion exchange membrane. Furthermore, an increase in feed flow rate led to a reduction in the concentration variation, resulting in an increase in OCV and power density. The energy efficiency and specific energy for 100 cells in the 10 × 10 cm² stack were the highest at 12% and 0.05 kWh/m³, respectively, while the power density from 0.33 cm/s to 5 × 5 cm² stack was the highest at 0.53 W/m². The study showed that the RED performance can be improved by altering the size of the stack and the number of cell pairs, thereby positively affecting energy efficiency and specific energy.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.419-424
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• 2010

The 125kW external reforming (ER) type molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) system for developing a commercial prototype has been operated at Boryeong thermal power plant site since the end of 2009. The system consists of 125kW stack with $10,000 cm^2$ effective area, mechanical balance of plant (MBOP) with anode recycle system, and electrical balance of plant (EBOP). The 125kW MCFC stack installed in December, 2009 has been operated from January, 2010 after 20 days pre-treatment. The stack open circuit voltage (OCV) was 214V at initial load operation, which approaches the thermodynamically theoretical voltage. The stack voltage remained stable range from 160V to 180V at the maximum generating power of 120 kW DC. The stack has been operated for 3,270 hours and operated at rated power for 1,200 hours.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.981-985
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• 2007

We present a MEMS-based portable Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (micro-DFMC), featured by a platinum sputtered microcolumn electrode and a built-in fuel chamber containing a limited amount of methanol fuel. Also presented is a micro-DMFC stack structure having a common electrolyte sandwiched by the microcolumn electrodes. The single cells with ME16 and PE16 electrodes show the maximum power densities of $31.04{\pm}0.29{\mu}W/cm^2$ and $9.75{\pm}0.29{\mu}W/cm^2$, respectively; thus indicating the microcolumn electrode (ME16) generates the power density (3.2 times) higher than the planar electrode (PE16). The single cell tests of ME16 and ME4 electrodes (Fig.8) show the maximum power of $31.04{\pm}0.29{\mu}W/cm^2$, and $25.23{\pm}2.7{\mu}W/cm^2$, respectively; thus demonstrating the increased window frame reduces the normalized standard power deviation (standard deviation over the average power). The normalized deviation of 0.11 in ME4 cell has been reduced to 0.01 in ME16 cell due to the increased window frames. The maximum power density of 4-cell stack is 15.7 times higher than that of the single cell. 4-cell stack produces the power capacity of 20.3mWh/g during 980min operation at the voltage of 450mV with the load resistance of $800{\Omega}$.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.134-142
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• 2012

A bipolar plate is a major component of a fuel cell stack, which occupies 50~60% of the total weight and over 50% of the total cost of a typical fuel cell stack. In this study, a composite bipolar plate is designed and fabricated to develop a compact and light-weight direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) stack for a small-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) application. The composite bipolar plates for DMFCs are prepared by a compression molding method using resole type phenol resin as a binder and natural graphite and carbon black as a conductor filler and tested in terms of electrical conductivity, mechanical strength and hydrogen permeability. The flexural strength of 63 MPa and the in-plane electrical conductivities of 191 S $cm^{-1}$ are achieved under the optimum bipolar plate composition of phenol : 18%; natural graphite : 82%; carbon black : 3%, indicating that the composite bipolar plates exhibit sufficient mechanical strength, electrical conductivity and hydrogen permeability to be applied in a DMFC stack. A DMFC with the composite bipolar plate is tested and shows a similar cell performance with a conventional DMFC with graphite-based bipolar plate.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.121-128
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• 2024

In this study, a dynamic simulation model of a heavy-duty truck, equipped with a fuel cell power-train, has been developed and the dynamic behavior of the fuel cell stack has bee investigated using. Output change simulations were performed according to several drive cycle load change of a fuel cell truck. Mathworks' Simulink and Simscape program were used to develop the model. The model is comprised of fuel cell power train, power converter system and truck vehicle part. The vehicle runs at targeted speed of the truck, which is set as the load of the system. The dynamic behavior of the fuel cell stack according to the weight difference were analyzed, and based on this, the dynamic characteristics of the fuel cell output power and battery state with simple load was analyzed.