• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.339-356
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• 2018

Although fuel cell systems have advantages in terms of electric efficiency and environmental impact compared with conventional power systems, fuel cell systems have not been deployed widely due to their low reliability and high price. In order to guarantee the lifetime of 10 years, which is the commercialization goal of Polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs), it is necessary to improve durability and reliability through optimized operation and maintenance technologies. Due to the complexity of components and their degradation phenomena, it's not easy to develop and apply the diagnose and prognostic methodologies for PEFCs. The purpose of the paper is to show the current state on PEFC prognostic technology for condition based maintenance. For the prognostic of PEFCs, the model driven method, the data-driven, and the hybrid method can be applied. The methods reviewed in this paper can contribute to the development of technologies to reduce the life cycle cost of fuel cells and increase the reliability through prognostics-based health management system.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.32-39
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• 2007

CO oxidation and selective CO oxidation of $La_xCe_{1-x}Co_yCu_{1-y}O_{3-{\alpha}}$ perovskite(x=1, 0.9, 0.7. 0.5; y=1, 0.9, 0.7, 0.5) were investigated. For CO oxidation, catalytic activities were studied according to different preparation conditions such as pH and calcination temperature. The influence of the change of the $O_2$ concentration for selective CO oxidation was studied, too. The substitution of Ce for La improved the catalytic activity for CO oxidation and selective CO oxidation and best activity was observed for $La_{0.7}Ce_{0.3}CoO_3$ prepared at pH 11 and calcined at $600^{\circ}C$. The temperature of 90% CO conversion for CO oxidation using $La_{0.7}Ce_{0.3}CoO_3$ was $230^{\circ}C$. In contrast to the enhancement effect by Ce substitution, the partial substitution of Cu for Co in $LaCo_yCu_{1-y}O_{3-{\alpha}}$ decreased catalytic activities for CO oxidation reaction compared to that using $LaCoO_3$. For selective CO oxidation, the best CO conversion was 66% at $230^{\circ}C$ for $La_{0.7}Ce_{0.3}CoO_3$. The CO conversion of $La_{0.7}Ce_{0.3}CoO_3$ was greatly increased from 66% to 91% as increasing $O_2$ concentration from 1% to 2%.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.456-461
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• 2003

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device in which the energy of a chemical reaction is converted directly into electricity. By combining hydrogen fuel with oxygen from air, electricity is formed, without combustion of any form. Water and heat are the only by-products when hydrogen is used as the fuel source. Fuel cell stack consists of multi-layered unit cells. A unit cell consists of MEA and bipolar plates. The end plate of fuel cell stack should give a uniform distributed pressure to multi unit cell layers so as to reduce the contact resistance and to prevent the leakage of reactant gases and the damage of multi layer components. The current end plate is redundantly large and heavy. It makes the power per unit volume reduced. Topology optimization of end plate is conducted for mass reduction and enhancement of bending rigidity. The evaluation of the current design and the recommendation for the future design is remarked.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.73-84
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• 2014

Fuel cells of proton exchange membrane type (PEMFC) working with hydrogen in the anode and ambient air in the cathode ('air breathing') have been prepared and characterized. The cells have been studied with variable thickness of the cathode catalyst layer ($L_{CL}$), maintaining constant the platinum and ionomer loads. Polarization curves and electrochemical active area measurements have been carried out. The polarization curves are analyzed in terms of a model for a flooded passive air breathing cathode. The analysis shows that $L_{CL}$ affects to electrochemical kinetics and mass transport processes inside the electrode, as reflected by two parameters of the polarization curves: the Tafel slope and the internal resistance. The observed decrease in Tafel slope with decreasing $L_{CL}$ shows improvements in the oxygen reduction kinetics which we attribute to changes in the catalyst layer structure. A decrease in the internal resistance with $L_{CL}$ is attributed to lower protonic resistance of thinner catalyst layers, although the observed decrease is lower than expected probably because the electronic conduction starts to be hindered by more hydrophilic character and thicker ionomer film.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.232-238
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• 2008

Research has been proceeded on fuel cell which is fueled by hydrogen. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is promising power source due to high power density, simple construction and operation at low temperature. But it has problems such as high cost, temperature dependent performance. These problems could be solved by experiment which is useful for analysis and optimization of fuel cell performance and heat management. In this paper, when hydrogen flows constantly at the stoichiometry of ${\xi}=1.6$, the performance of the fuel cell stack was increased and the voltage difference between each cells was decreased according to the increase of air stoichiometry by 2.0, 2.5, 3.0. Therefore, the control of air flow rate in the same gas channel is important to get higher performance. Purpose of this research is to expect operation temperature, flow rate, performance and mass transportation through experiment and to help actual manufacture of PEM fuel cell stack.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.130-141
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• 2022

Due to continuous climate change, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are gradually accumulating, and various extreme weather events occurring all over the world are a serious threat to human sustainability. Countries around the world are making efforts to convert energy sources from traditional fossil fuels to renewable energy. Hydrogen energy is a clean energy source that exists infinitely on Earth, and can be used in most areas that require energy, such as power generation, transportation, commerce, and household sectors. A fuel cell, a device that produces electric and thermal energy by using hydrogen energy, is a key field to respond to climate change, and major countries around the world are spurring the development of core fuel cell technology. In this paper, research trends in China, the United States, Germany, Japan, and Korea, which have the highest number of papers related to fuel cells, are analyzed through keyword network analysis.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.170-179
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• 2005

Electrolyte loss is considered as one of the major obstacles limiting the life time of molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs). Unit cells with an effective area of 100 $cm^2$ were prepared and were operated to determine the optimum matrix thickness which contains the maximum amount of electrolyte without serious preformance loss caused by high resistance. Matrices with different thickness, 1.45, 1.8, and 2.3 mm, were used in unit cells and those cells were operared about 5000, 10000, and 4000 hrs. The unit cell used 1.8 mm thick matrix showed 0.85 V (at 150 mA/$cm^2$) as the intial performance and this cell voltage is not lower than the cell voltage obtained in the cell with 1 mm thick matrix. This cell was operated for 10000 hrs. The cell used 1.45 mm thick matrices showed 16.6 % in the electrolyte loss after 5000 hr operation. In the case of the cell with 2.3 mm thick matrix, the initial cell voltage was below 0.80 V (at 150 mA/$cm^2$). For thermal cycle test, the gas crossover amount of unit cell used 1.8 mm thick matrix was much less than that of the cell with 1.0 mm thick matrix.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.26-33
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• 2012

Phosphoric acid-doped poly (2,5-benzimidazole) (DABPBI) was prepared by condensation polymerization of 3,4-diaminobenzoic acid for high temperature proton electrolyte membrane fuel cells. The membranes were casted directly using a hot-press unit and characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, conductivity measurement, scanning electron microscopy and tensile test. The proton conductivities of DABPBI are observed to be 0.062 and 0.018 $S{\cdot}cm^{-1}$ under 30 and 1% relative humidity, respectively at a temperature of $120^{\circ}C$ which is appreciably higher than that of Nafion 115 under similar conditions. The DABPBI membrane has demonstrated excellent thermo- mechanical properties and proton conductivity suggesting its suitability as a high temperature membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.384-389
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• 2009

KEPRI (Korea Electric Power Research Institute) has studied planar type solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stacks using anode-supported cells and kW class co-generation systems for residential power generation. In this work, a 1 kW SOFC system consisted of a hot box part, a cold BOP (balance of plant) part, and a hot water reservoir. The hot box part contained a SOFC stack made up of 48 cells, a fuel reformer, a catalytic combustor, and heat exchangers. Thermal management and insulation system were especially designed for self-sustainable operation in that system. A cold BOP part was composed of blowers, pumps, a water trap, and system control units. When the 1 kW SOFC stack was tested using hydrogen at $750^{\circ}C$, the stack power was about $1.2\;kW_e$ at 30 A and $1.6\;kW_e$ at 50 A. Turning off an electric furnace, the SOFC system was operated using hydrogen and city gas without any external heat source. Under self-sustainable operation conditions, the stack power was about $1.3\;kW_e$ with hydrogen and $1.2\;kW_e$ with city gas respectively. The system also recuperated heat of about $1.1\;kW_{th}$ by making hot water.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.587-595
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• 2018

Recently, research is being conducted to use a fuel cell as a power source of unmanned aircraft. However, safety standards about applying fuel cells to unmanned aircraft are insufficient. In this paper, to improve the safety of the fuel cells for unmanned aircraft is experimentally studied. For this reason, standards for safety of fuel cells were analyzed. And influence of vibration among the evaluation items related to the safety of the fuel cell for unmanned aircraft was discussed. In order to, at constant intervals, vibration was applied to the fuel cell, then the performance was measured, the measurement items were gas tightness, polarization curve, frequency response analysis (FRA). A total of 220 hours was experimented at 20 hour intervals. the result of vibration test, gas leakage rate was a maximum of -0.04826 kPa/min and Polarization curve reached a maximum of 1.0103 times of the initial value, the charge transfer resistance reached a maximum of 1.0104 times of the initial value. This research indicate that performance of fuel cell is affected by vibration and this study is expected to contribute to the safety of fuel cell for unmanned aircraft.