• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.11 no.5
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• pp.1585-1591
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• 2010

DMFC uses oxygen by reactants. Therefore, cathode electrode must contact with outside air. However, when used in mobile devices, the user's body by blocking the air intake on the oxygen supply DMFC con not. DMFC to supply air to the cooling fan is used. However, by using cooling fan, air inlet to the pressure loss and changes will occurs, the output will be worse. In this paper, we designed air supplying system using piezo actuators. We DMFC evaluation system was implemented, verified the performance of air supplying system. And the operation was connected to an MP3 player.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.21-26
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• 2007

DMFC(Direct Methanol Fuel Cell) has been considered as an attractive option to produce electric power in many application. In this study, in order to estimate the effects of the methanol concentration, wind velocity and temperature on the performance of DMFC, a physical prototype of DMFC was designed and manufactured, and the stack voltage of DMFC was measured during the operation of DMFC. Expecially, the experimental results showed that a low stack temperature, a low wind velocity and an excess methanol concentration lead to the increase of the time to reach the maximum stack voltage.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.137-140
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• 2007

We consider the optimum air flow channel design for DMFC's in the present study. The effect of pressure drop across the inlet and outlet of a stack on the performance of a DMFC is the optimization of such geometric parameters is crucial to minimize the parasitic power usage by the auxiliary devices such as fuel pumps and blowers. In this paper, we present how the pressure drop control can optimize the driving point of a DMFC stack. Further, we show how the optimal fuel utilization ratio can be achieved, not degrading the performance of DMFC stacks. Overall, we discuss how the flow channel design affects the selection of balance of plant(BOP) components, the design of DMFC systems and the system efficiency.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.495-509
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• 2013

In this study, we develop a one-dimensional (1-D), two-phase, transient-thermal DMFC model to investigate the effect of methanol concentration fluctuation that usually occurs in active-type direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) systems. 1-D transient simulations are conducted and time-dependent behaviors of DMFCs are analyzed under various DMFC operating conditions such as anode/cathode stoichiometry, cell temperature, and cathode inlet humidification. The simulation results indicate that the effect of methanol concentration fluctuation on DMFC performance can be mitigated by proper control of anode/cathode stoichiometry, providing a guideline to optimize operating conditions of active DMFC systems.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.57-65
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• 2021

This paper explains a DMFC-Lithium Battery hybrid system applied to a forklift. A conventional Lead Acid battery forklift has several problems: long charging times, short operation times, and frequent battery replacements. As a result, hydrogen-powered forklifts are replacing Lead acid battery-powered forklifts due to their shorter refueling time and longer operation times. However, in doing so, we are confronted with the problem of a high hydrogen refueling infrastructure. A Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC), on the other hand, is an eco-friendly generator that directly converts the chemical energy of methanol into electricity. In general, DMFC is regarded as a small power generator under kW power. In this paper, a DMFC-Battery hybrid system is applied to a 1.5 ton forklift by increasing the power output of the DMFC stack and utilizing the high charge-discharge characteristics of a lithium battery.

• Clean Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2004

Direct methanol fuel cell(DMFC) with proton exchange membrane (PEM) has advantages over the conventional power source (e.g. vehicle). DMFC, however, has a problem to be solved such as methanol crossover, high anodic overpotential and limiting current density, etc. The physicochemical phenomena in DMFC can be described by coupled PDEs (partial differential equations), which can be solved by a PDE solver. In this paper, we utilized a commercial software FEMLAB to solve the PDEs. The FEMLAB is one of the software programs available which are developed as a solver for building physics problems based on PDEs and is designed to simulate systems of coupled PDEs which may be 1D, 2D, 3D, non-liner and time dependent. We performed simulation using the Tafel equation as an electrochemical reaction model to analyze methanol concentration profile in DMFC system. We confirm that the rapid decrease of methanol concentration at anodic catalyst layer with the increase of the current density is a main reason of the low performance in DMFC through simulation results.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.27-29
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• 2002

We report a fuel cell power supply unit for mobile phone which operates at room temperature and ambient pressure using liquid methanol and air. The unit consists of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and a back-up battery connected parallely to the fuel cell. DMFC supplies half of the required power and the back-up battery supplies the other half during talk mode. In standby mode, DMFC covers $100\%$ of the required power and charges the back-up battery as well, Eight unit cells, each having $9 cm^2$ of active area, were connected in series in order to raise the output volotage to $2.5\~3.9V$, which is typical for most mobile phones.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.27-30
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• 2007

This study considers the feasibility of the concentration control of the methanol solution by oscillating flow in the anode channel of passive type Direct Methanol Fuel Cells(DMFC). DMFC stack performance is largely influenced by the fuel concentration. If the fuel concentration is either lower than 0.5M or more than 2M, its performance deteriorates seriously because of the fuel starvation or the fuel crossover. In this respect the optimization of the fuel concentration is crucially important to maximize the DMFC stack performance. In this work, the effects of oscillating actuation in the fuel supply are studied to control the fuel concentration. Two important nondimensional parameters are introduced, each of which represents either the oscillating frequency or the oscillating amplitude. It is shown how these factors affect the stack performance and the efficiency of the DMFC stack.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.492-501
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• 2017

A 900 W scale direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) stack is designed and fabricated for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) applications. To meet the volume and weight requirements, metallic bipolar plates are applied to the DMFC stack for the first time wherein POS470FC was chosen as bipolar plate material. To ensure good robustness of the metallic bipolar plate based DMFC stack, finite element method based simulations are conducted using a commercial ANSYS Fluent software. The stress buildup and deformation characteristics on bipolar plates and end plates are analyzed in details. The present DMFC stack exhibits the performance of 1,130 W at 32 V and 35.3 A, clearly demonstrating that it could successfully operate for UAVs requiring around 1,000 W of power.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers C
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.218-224
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• 2004

We present a miniature Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (micro-DMFC) using platinum sputtered microcolumn electrodes with a limited amount of fuel. We use the microcolumn electrode in order to improve the power density of the micro-DMFC that consists of two electrodes and polymer electrolyte. We also design the built-in fuel chamber in the anode for the portable electronics applications. We design and fabricate both microcolumn and planar electrodes, having an identical projective area of 5mm${\times}$5mm. The diffusion current density of the microcolumn electrode is 1.73 times higher than that of the planar electrode at electrode potential of 1.1V in the half-cell test. The micro-DMFC based on the microcolumn electrodes shows the maximum power of 10.8$\pm$7.54㎼(43.23$\pm$0.16㎼/$\textrm{cm}^2$) at the projective area of 5mm${\times}$5mm, while the planar electrode micro-DMFC shows the maximum power of 0.81$\pm$0.42㎼(3.24$\pm$1.68㎼/$\textrm{cm}^2$) at the same projective area. The micro-DMFC based on the microcolumn electrodes shows 13 times higher power density that the micro-DMFC based on the planar electrodes does.