• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.144-147
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.212-214
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• 2005

• Journal of Powder Materials
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.63-71
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• 2020

It is necessary to fabricate uniformly dispersed nanoscale catalyst materials with high activity and long-term stability for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells with excellent electrochemical characteristics of the oxygen reduction reaction and hydrogen oxidation reaction. Platinum is known as the best noble metal catalyst for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells because of its excellent catalytic activity. However, given that Pt is expensive, considerable efforts have been made to reduce the amount of Pt loading for both anode and cathode catalysts. Meanwhile, the atomic layer deposition (ALD) method shows excellent uniformity and precise particle size controllability over the three-dimensional structure. The research progress on noble metal ALD, such as Pt, Ru, Pd, and various metal alloys, is presented in this review. ALD technology enables the development of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells with excellent reactivity and durability.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.171-179
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• 2015

Perfluorinated sulfonic acid ionomers (PFSAs) have been widely as solid electrolyte materials for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells, since they exhibit excellent chemical durability under their harsh application conditions as well as good proton conductivity. Even PFSA materials, however, suffer from physical failures associated with repeated membrane swelling and deswelling, resulting in fairly reduced electrochemical lifetime. In this study, pore-filling membranes are prepared by impregnating a Nafion ionomer into the pore of a porous PTFE support film and their fundamental characteristics are evaluated. The developed pore-filling membranes exhibit extremely high proton conductivity of about $0.5S\;cm^{-1}@90^{\circ}C$ in liquid water.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.295-300
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• 2007

A new characterization method using a porous plug model was proposed to determine the degree of sulfonation (DS) of ionomer binder with respect to the membrane used in membrane-electrode assemblies (MEAs) and to analyze the fraction of proton pathways through ionomer-catalyst combined electrodes in MEAs for polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs). Sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) was prepared to use a polymeric electrolyte and laboratory-made SPEEK solution (5wt.%, DMAc based) was added to catalyst slurry to form catalyst layers. In case of the SPEEK-based MEAs in this study, DS of ionomer binder for catalyst layers should be the same or higher than that of the SPEEK membrane used in the MEAs. The porous plug model suggested that most of protons were via the ionomer binder (${\sim}92.5%$) bridging the catalyst surface to the polymeric electrolyte, compared with the pathways through the alternative between the interstitial water on the surface of ionomer binder or catalyst and the ionomer binder (${\sim}7.3%$) and through only the interstitial water on the surface of ionomer or catalyst (${\sim}0.2%$) in the electrode of the MEA comprising of the sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) membrane and the 5wt.% SPEEK ionomer binder. As a result, it was believed that the majority of proton at both electrodeds moves through ionomer binder until reaching to electrolyte membrane. The porous plug model of the electrodes of MEAs reemphasized the importance of well-optimized structure of ionomer binder and catalyst for fuel cells.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.89.1-89.1
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• 2011

The influence of potential and humidity on the electrochemical carbon corrosion in high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells(HT-PEMFCs) is investigated by measuring $CO_2$ emission at different potentials for 30 min using on-line mass spectrometry. These results are compared with low tempterature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells(LT-PEMFCs) operated at lower temperature and higher humidity condition. Although the HT-PEMFC is operated at non humidified condition, the emitted $CO_2$ in the condition of HT-PEMFC is more than LT-PEMFC at the same potential in carbon corrosion test. Thus, carbon corrosion shows a stronger positive correlation with the cell temperature. In addition, the presence of a little amount of water activate electrochemical carbon corrosion considerably in HT-PEMFC. With increased carbon corrosion, changes in fuel cell electrochemical characteristics become more noticeable and thereby indicate that such corrosion considerably affects fuel cell durability.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.29-32
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• 2003

Polymer electrolyte membranes are developed for the applications to facilitated transport membranes, fuel cells and solar cells. The polymer electrolyte membranes containing silver salt show the remarkably high separation performance for olefin/paraffin mixture in the solid state; the propylene permeance is 45 GPU and the ideal selectivity of propylene/propane is 15,000. For fuel cell membranes, the effects of the presence and size of the proton transport channels on the proton conductivity and methanol permeability were investigated. The cell performance for dye-sensitized solar cells employing polymer electrolytes are measured under light illumination. The overall energy conversion efficiency reaches 5.44 % at 10 ㎽/$\textrm{cm}^2$, to our knowledge the highest value ever reported in the polymer electrolytes.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.127-131
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• 2016

Polymer electrolyte membrane for unitized regenerative fuel cells requires high proton conductivity, high dimensional stability, low permeability, and low cost. However, DuPont's Nafion which is a commercial polymer electrolyte membrane has high permeability, high cost, and decreasing proton conductivity and dimensional stability over $80^{\circ}C$. To address these problems, sulfonated poly ether ether ketone (sPEEK) which is a low cost hydrocarbon polymer is selected as matrix polymer for the preparation of polymer electrolyte membrane. In addition, composite membrane with improved proton conductivity and dimensional stability is prepared by introducing sulfonated graphene oxide (sGO). The fundamental properties of polymer electrolyte membranes are analyzed by investigating membrane's water content, dimensional stability, proton conductivity, and morphology. The cell test is conducted to consider the possibility of application of sPEEK/sGO composite membrane for an unitized regenerative fuel cell.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.17 no.10
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• pp.729-733
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• 2009

Solution casting films of sulfonated poly[styrene-b-(ethylene-r-butylene)-b-styrene] copolymer (sSEBS)-based composite membranes that contained different amounts of organic, nanorod-shaped polyrotaxane were annealed at various temperatures for 1 h. The films' properties were characterized with respect to their use as polymer electrolyte membranes in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). Different aspect ratios of polyrotaxane were prepared using the inclusion-complex reaction between $\alpha$-cyclodextrin and poly(ethylene glycol). The presence of the organic polyrotaxane inside the membrane changed the morphology during the membrane preparation and reduced the transport of methanol. The conductivity and methanol permeability of the composite membranes decreased with increasing polyrotaxane content, while the annealing temperature increased. All of the sSEBS-based, polyrotaxane composite membranes annealed at $140^{\circ}C$ showed a higher selectivity parameter, suggesting their potential usage for DMFCs.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.715-720
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• 2010

We propose an electroosmosis-based air delivery scheme for polymer electrolyte fuel cells and experimentally investigate its feasibility. An electroosmotic pump under a low-frequency AC electric field is used to displace initially a volume of pump working liquids. This working liquid is then pumped into a space enclosed by a flexible membrane and the movement of the membrane delivers air to a fuel cell. We successfully demonstrated the operation of a forced-convection fuel cell using this technique. In this preliminary study, however, the power consumption of the pump exceeds the power generated by the fuel cell. We conclude this paper with a discussion of several ways to reduce the pump-to-fuel cell power ratio.