Seungwhan Baek

The Tests of 1 kWe Diesel Reformer and Solid Oxide Fuel Cell System

The high temperatures required to operate solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) allow for internal reforming of hydrocarbon fuels over a Ni-based anode. With their capability of being fuel flexible, SOFCs have operated under a wide range of fuels including diesel as examined in this study. But in order to reduce high possibilities of deposit formation in diesel internal reforming, additional external reforming technology was used for our system. The final goal of this research is to develop 1 kWe diesel-powered SOFC systems for residential power generation. Before constructing a complete 1 kWe SOFC system, a series of durability experiments were conducted on individual components of the system including the fuel reformer and stack. After testing the full-scale 1 kWe diesel reformer, deposit formation was visible within the catalyst and on the surface of the reactor head, which seriously degraded the performance. With several individual components tested, the construction of one-box type 1 kWe SOFC system is in progress. In a preliminary six-cell stack test using sulfur-free synthetic diesel, the system initially showed an output power of ∼110 kWe at a 0.8 V average cell potential. However, there was a significant drop off in output power after a few hours of operation, which was likely caused by severe deposit formation on the SOFC stack. Light hydrocarbons such as ethylene and/or “less reformed” heavier hydrocarbons caused by gas reactions under the incomplete fuel mixing upstream of the catalyst were likely responsible for the deposit formation.

Development of a closed-loop J–T cryoablation device with a long cooling area and multiple expansion parts

Cryoablation is a surgical procedure used to freeze defective cells by inserting a low temperature probe into a human body to destroy malignant tissues. Miniaturized Joule-Thomson (J-T) refrigerators are often used to minimize the volume of the cooling device and reduce the destruction zone of normal tissue. The cooling effects of the existing probes are not uniformly generated along the longitudinal direction of the probe, which makes their applications less effective in surgeries of incompetent great saphenous veins (GSVs), where the target cells are distributed over a broad range. Long uniform refrigeration is required across the entire area of the probe to apply the same cooling effects. In this paper, a closed-loop J-T cryoablation probe was designed and fabricated to provide uniform refrigeration over a large area, with multiple expansion parts. Using flow boiling heat transfer, uniform cooling of a 200 mm-long and 0.3 mm thickness piece of target tissue was possible and simulated in a gelatin solution. The developed probe produced a greater than 53 K min(-1) cooling rate and the cooling temperature was below 253 K to satisfy the required cell death conditions.

Elongating axial conduction path design to enhance performance of cryogeinc compact pche (printed circuit heat exchanger)

PCHE (Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger) is one of the promising cryogenic compact heat exchangers due to its compactness, high NTU and robustness. The essential procedure for fabricating PCHE is chemical etching and diffusion bonding. These technologies can create sufficiently large heat transfer area for a heat exchanger with numerous micro channels (Dh<1 mm). However, PCHE shows disadvantages of high pressure drop and large axial conduction loss. Axial conduction is a critical design issue of a cryogenic heat exchanger when it is operated with a large temperature difference. Elongating the heat conduction path is implemented to reduce axial conduction in PCHE in this study. Two PCHEs with identical channel configuration are fabricated, for comparison, one of which is modified to have longer heat conduction path. Both heat exchangers are tested in cryogenic environment (300~70 K), and the modified PCHE shows better performance with significantly reduced axial conduction. The experimental results indicate t...

Joule-Thomson cryocooler with neon and nitrogen mixture using commercial air-conditioning compressors

A 2-stage mixed refrigerant (MR) Joule-Thomson (JT) cryocooler was designed for cooling high temperature superconducting cable below 70 K. The low temperature cycle was to operate with neon-nitrogen mixture, and the required compression ratio was approximately 24 when the suction pressure was 100 kPa. The high compression ratio of 24, the low pressure of 100 kPa at compressor suction, and the working fluid with high heat of compression were challenging issues to existing typical compression systems. We developed an innovative compression system with commercial oil-lubricated air-conditioning compressors. They were 2-stage rotary compressors originally designed for R410Aand connected in series. The compressors were modified to accommodate effective intercooling at every stage to alleviate compressor overheating problem. Additionally, fine-grade three-stage oil filters, an adsorber, and driers were installed at the discharge line to avoid a potential clogging problem from oil mist and moisture at low temper...

DEVELOPMENT OF THE HYBRID JT‐EXPANDER CYCLE FOR NG LIQUEFACTION CYCLE

Two liquefaction cycles for LNG (liquefied natural gas) production are compared in this paper. One is a well known MR (mixed refrigerant) JT cycle with two phase separators and four heat exchangers. Another one is the novel concept of hybrid cycle, which is to replace the last stage JT expansion with a turbine expander. The inlet flow to the turbine expander is deliberately warmed up by NG (natural gas) stream to guarantee superheated vapor phase and increase useful work. The turbine expander is to extract pressure exergy and reduce entropy generation by producing work and alleviating work requirement in the compressor. This paper describes the detailed processes of hybrid JT‐expander cycle and the quantitative comparison results by HYSYS simulation under some realistic physical constraints.

Microchannel heat exchanger for two-phase Mixed Refrigerant Joule Thomson process

Mixed Refrigerant Joule Thomson (MR-JT) refrigerators are widely used in various kinds of cryogenic systems these days. Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) is one of the promising cryogenic compact recuperators for MR-JT refrigerators due to its compactness, high NTU and robustness. However, PCHE composed with microchannel bundles can cause flow mal-distribution, and it can cause the degradation of thermal performance of the system. To mitigate the flow mal-distribution problem, the cross link (or intra-layer bypass) can be adapted to parallel microchannels. Two heat exchangers are fabricated in this study; one has straight channels, and the other one has intra-layer bypass structure between channels to enhance the flow distribution. The MR-JT refrigerators are operated with these two heat exchanger and the no-load temperatures are compared. The lower no load temperature achieved with the intra-layer bypass structured heat exchanger. The results indicate that the flow mal-distribution in the microchanne...

Investigation of Two Phase Heat Transfer Coefficients of Cryogenic Mixed Refrigerants

Mixed Refrigerant Joule Thomson (MR-JT) refrigerators are widely used in various kinds of cryogenic systems these days. Although heat transfer coefficient estimation for a multiphase and multi-component fluid in cryogenic temperature range is necessarily required in the heat exchanger design of MR-JT refrigerator, it has been rarely discussed so far. In this paper, condensation and evaporation heat transfer coefficients of mixed refrigerant are measured in a microchannel heat exchanger. Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger (PCHE) has been developed as a compact microchannel heat exchanger and used in the experiment. Several two-phase heat transfer coefficient correlations are examined to discuss the experimental measurement results. The result of this paper shows that cryogenic mixed refrigerant heat transfer coefficients can be estimated by conventional two-phase heat transfer coefficient correlations.© 2013 ASME

Parametric Study of SOFC System Efficiency Under Operation Conditions of Butane Reformer

In this study, the efficiency of a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system with a steam reformer or prereformer was analyzed under various conditions. The main components of the system are the reformer, SOFC, and water boiling heat recovery system. Endothermic and exothermic reactions occur in the reformer and SOFC, respectively. Hence, the thermal management of the SOFC system greatly influences the SOFC system efficiency. First, the efficiencies of SOFC systems with a steam reformer and a prereformer are compared. The system with the prereformer was more efficient than the one with steam reformer due to less heat loss. Second, the system efficiencies under various prereformer operating conditions were analyzed. The system efficiency was a function of the heat requirement of the system. The efficiency increased with an increase in the operating temperature of the prereformer, and the maximum system efficiency was observed at for a S/C of 2.0.