• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.373-385
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• 2013

To obtain higher power efficiency of Residential Power Generation system(RPG), it is needed to operate system on optimized stoichiometric ratios of fuel and air. Stoichiometric ratios of fuel/air are closely related to efficiency of stack, reformer and power consumption of Balance Of Plant(BOP). In this paper, optimizing stoichiometric ratios of fuel/air are conducted through systematic experiments and modeling. Based on fundamental principles and experimental data, constraints are chosen. By implementing these optimum values of stoichiometric ratios, power efficiency of the system could be maximized.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.822-828
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• 2013

Since the operating temperature of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is high, the heat management of the gases supplied to fuel cell system is important. In this paper, the temperature characteristic of the gases supplied to the anode and the cathode of the fuel cell is studied in case of utilizing the waste heat contained in the ship exhaust gas as a heat source to heat up the fuel, gas and water supplied to a 500kW SOFC system for a ship power. For the fuel cell system proposed in this paper, the temperature of gases supplied to the anode and the cathode was the highest temperature at 963K when the exhaust gas of the fuel cell was utilized as the heat source for gases supplied to fuel cell system instead of utilizing the ship exhaust gas. In addition, the engine power did not effect on the temperature of gases supplied to the fuel cell stack.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.315-323
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• 2021

The air-cooled proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) stacks, which is widely used in small-sized PEMFC, have a problem in that durability is weaker than that of the water-cooled type. Because the cathode is open to the atmosphere and the structural problem of the air-cooled stack, which is difficult to maintain airtightness, is highly likely to form a hydrogen/air boundary during start-up/shut-down (SU/SD). Through the accelerated durability evaluation of the 20 W air-cooled PEMFC stack, the purpose of this study was to find out the cause of the degradation of the stack and to contribute to the improvement of the durability of the air-cooled PEMFC stack. In this study, it was possible to evaluate durability in a relatively short time by reducing 20-30% of initial performance by repeating SU/SD 1,000 to 1,200 times on an air-cooled PEMFC stack. After disassembling the stack, each cell was divided into two and the performance analysis showed that the electrode degradation was more severe in the anode outlet membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which facilitates air inflow as a whole, than in the inlet MEA. It was shown that the cathode Pt was dissolved/precipitated to deteriorate the polymer ionomer inside the membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.34-40
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• 2015

A stack in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) consists of bipolar plates, a membrane electrode assembly, a gas diffusion layer, a collector and end plates. High current density is usually obtainable partially from uniform temperature distribution in the fuel cell. A size optimization method considering the thermal expansion effect of stacked plates was developed on the basis of finite element analyses. The thermal stresses in end, bipolar, and cooling plates were calculated based on temperature distribution obtained from thermal analyses. Finally, the optimization method was applied and optimum thicknesses of the three plates were calculated considering both fastening bolt tension and thermal expansion of each unit cell (72 cells, 5kW). The optimum design considering both thermal and mechanical loads increases the thickness of an end plate by 0.64-0.83% the case considering only mechanical load. The effect can be enlarged if the number of stack increases as in an automotive application to 200-300 stacks.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.301-305
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• 2007

The performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell could be decreased due to coolant leaked from connection part. Micro pump was used to put small amount of coolant and investigate the effect on fuel cell. The stoichiometric ratio of hydrogen/air was 1.5/2.0, both side of gas was fully humidified, and current density of $400mA/cm^2$ was used as standard condition in this experiment. Constant current method was used to check performance recovery from coolant effect in 3 cell stack. The performance was recovered when coolant was injected in cathode side. On the other hand, the performance was not recovered when coolant was injected in anode side. Ethylene glycol could be converted to CO in oxidation process and cause poisoning effect on platinum catalyst or be adhered on GDL and cause gas diffusion block effect resulting performance decrease. Water with nitrogen gas was supplied in anode side to check performance recovery. Polarization curve, cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to check performance, and gas chromatography was used to check coolant concentration. Constant current method was not enough in full recovery of performance. However, water injection method was proved good method in full recovery of performance.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.129-138
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• 2011

Performance changes of an anode-supported tubular SOFC including current collectors are analyzed at different current collecting methods using numerical simulation. From the two dimensional numerical model of the solid oxide fuel cell with nickel felts as anodic current collectors and silver wires as cathodic ones, the performance curves and the distributions of temperature, concentration, current density are obtained. Also, the voltage loss of the cell is divided into three parts: activation loss, concentration loss and ohmic loss. The results show that the performance change of the cell is dominantly influenced by the ohmic loss. Although the temperature and concentration distributions are different, the total activation loss and concentration loss are nearly same. And the ohmic loss is divided into each parts of the cell components. The ohmic loss of the anodic current collectorreaches about 60~80% of the cell's total ohmic loss. Therefore, the reduction of the ohmic loss of the anodic current collector is very important for stack power enhancement. It is also recommended that the load should be connected to the both ends of the anodic current collector.

• Electrical & Electronic Materials
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.265-269
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• 1992

미국의 ERC는 용융탄산염형 연료전지의 연구개발을 연방 에너지성의 지원하에 100KW stack의 개발을 진행시키고 있으며 Pacific gas & Electric com.는 100KW stack 운전시험에 성공하면 2MW의 실증 P1-ant를 발주할 게획이다. 그리고 일본은 신에너지 산업기술 총합 개발 기구(NEDO)의 project인 1MW발전 system 개발을 목표로 100KW를 stack 개발, 1MW급 Plant 구성기기 기술 system 기술 개발 진행중에 있으며 '93년에 100KW급 stack의 중간평가 실시와 '93-'94년 1MW급 발전 system의 설계, 건설, 운전 시험을 계획중에 있다. 한편 고체 전해질형 연료전지는 국외에서 1.3KW급 발전에 성공하였으며 10-20KW급 연구 개발이 진행중이다. 따라서 국내에서는 차세대 연료전지인 MCFC와 SOFC에 대하여 많은 노력에 의해서 선진국 기술 수준에 접근하므로서 실용화가 가능하리라고 본다.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers P
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.317-324
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• 2010

It was used as measuring system to diagnose insulating condition, by which was kept a insulating resistance of inner stack and at the same time was cooled electrochemical heat of reaction of FCEV(fuel cell electric vehicle) stack that used a compressed hydrogen gas reacting with oxygen in accordance with variation on thermal degradation of nonconductive heat transfer fluid. Consequently it was developed a cylindrical multi-terminal capacitive-conductive sensor that could be attached to the internal surface of cooling system pipe to evaluate capacitance and conductivity of heat transfer fluid.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.343-346
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• 2005

In this paper a power conditioning system suitable for the fuel cell powered off-road vehicle is proposed. The proposed system employs a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell stack combined with boost converter, a super capacitor module combined with hi-directional buck-boost converter, a 4-quadrant DC chopper and a permanent magnet DC motor. The momentary overload condition occurring during the motor starting is handled by the energy stored in the supercapacitor module. Also, the regenerative energy can be stored in the supercapacitor module by operating the system in either buck or boost mode. This capability gives the system designer the higher flexibility in designing the system and assures the lower cost of the system. The validity and feasibility of the proposed system is proven by the computer simulation.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.553-561
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• 2012

Existing energy sources convert chemical energy into mechanical energy, while fuel cell directly generates electricity through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. Therefore, it has a lot of strong points such as high efficiency, zero emission, and etc. In addition, with the development of hydrogen preservation technique, some companies have been researching and releasing portable fuel cell power packs for specific applications like military equipment, automobile, and so on. However, there are some drawbacks to the fuel cell, high cost and slow dynamic response. In order to compensate these weak points, auxiliary energy storages could be applied to the fuel cell system. In this paper, the optimum structure for a 150W portable fuel cell power pack with a battery pack is selected considering the specification of the system, and the design process of main parts is described in detail. Here, main objectives are compact size, simple control, high efficiency, and low cost. Then, an automatic mode change algorithm, which converts the operating mode depending on the states of fuel cell stack, battery pack, and load, is introduced. Finally, performance of the designed prototype using the automatic mode change control is verified through experiments.