Sharif Digital Repository

This thesis is a part of national studies of “attractiveness analysis and strategy formulation of fuel cell technology in Iran" that was done during more than two years with the guidance of fuel cell steering committee. In this thesis, first of all the possibility of applying the technology strategy model of Arnold Hax in national level was investigated. For this purpose, with regard to the fuel cell technology specifications and status in the country, from the perspectives of national need to the technology, capabilities of technology in the country and new applications of technology, the technology strategy models of positioning school were studied and from the models of this approach,... 

Hydrogen fuel cell is one important choice to supply energy for vehicles in near future. The lack of a safe but inexpensive technology to store hydrogen in a vehicle tank is a serious challenge to commercialize the application of fuel cells. Past experiments have shown that carbon nanostructures, especially single walled carbon nanotubes, have considerable capacity to boost up hydrogen storage. Therefore, many studies have been performed to investigate the possibility of higher hydrogen storage capability using nanostructures for the past decade. Molecular dynamics method which is considered as one of the most important tools in studying nanostructures has shown vast applications in these... 

Solid fuel ignition transient in dump combustor geometry is numerically studied. The objective of this work is to gain insight into the ignition of the fuel and its controlling parameters in back-step turbulent flow. The system of governing equations is solved with a finite volume approach using a structured grid in which the AUSM+ scheme is used to calculate the gas phase convective fluxes. The Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model is used in these simulations. First, the auto-ignition of solid fuel subject to an inlet oxidizer flow at elevated temperatures is considered and distinct intervals in ignition delay time are studied. We have demonstrated that for inlet oxidizer streams with high... 

In this research, nano composite MgH2-TiCr1.2 Fe0.6 nano crystalline was synthesized by mechanical alloying and Vacuum arc re-melting (VAR). the effect of Milling conditions and adding nano crystalline TiCr1.2 Fe0.6 as a catalyst on the structure and hydrogen desorption properties of MgH2 were studied. MgH2 powder grain size after 4 hours milling gained to 15nm and strain network reached to 0.8%. Determined that the increasing of accumulated lattice strain because of mechanical milling combined with adding nano crystalline alloy TiCr1.2 Fe0.6 significantly improve the properties of MgH2 hydrogen desorption. After an hour mill working, high pressure phase of γ-MgH2 was appeared in... 

In developing countries, especially those which are importer of advanced technology in policymakers as well as decision makers face multiple options in the selection, acquisition, application, and development of technology fields. Any appropriate and on-time response to these issues with regard to the dynamics of the market is the one of essential challenges in the technology policymaking which is arrayed in this thesis. The term “Technology Intelligence" is a generic solution for dealing with such a challenge. This research is a part of the development process of the technology intelligence system in the national context which emphasizes the field of “Fuel Cell Technology” as the... 

In this work, sulfonated polycarbonate (SPC ) membranes with different acid contents have been prepared by conducting sulfonation reaction at room temperature using Chlorosulfonic acid (CSA) as sulfonating agent at different concentration of acid in reacting solution. The SPC membranes were obtained by casting from 10% solution of SPC in chloroform at room temperature. The prepared membranes were characterized using Ion exchange capacity (IEC), and degree of sulfonation (DS), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), NMR spectra, Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Water uptake. The obtained results showed that with increaseing in Chlorosulfonic acid content in sulfonation reaction IEC and DS of... 

Because of the high operating temperature, interconnect surface tends to be oxidized and Cr2O3 oxide layer will be created on the surface. This phenomenon is undesirable due to decreasing electrical conductivity, so a preservative coating is needed to improve the interconnect properties. In this paper, a dense perovskite thin film was successfully synthesized on a ferritic stainless steel (type 430) substrate by a sol-gel dip coating method. This coating improved chemical stability, oxidation behavior of the substrate and decreased cathode poisoning. The lanthanum chromite was coated on the substrate by sol-gel dip coating process. First, during a hydrolyze process, a stable sol was made up... 

With regard to recent progress in decreasing of operating temperature of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC), metallic interconnect use widely than ceramic interconnect. Metallic interconnect have interested due to their low cost, easy fabrication and high electronic and thermal conductivity.oxidation resistance of metals is big challenge, because of low conductivity of formed oxide layers that led to increasing of electrical conductivity. Ferritic stainless steel is among the most thriving candidate alloy because of BCC structure that its coefficient of temperature expansion is close to that of other SOFC. Nonetheless, the increase of electrical resistance over the time and the evaporation of... 

In this thesis, a reduced model of a distributed one-dimensional Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) system is presented. Consequently the reduced model is used to estimate the states of the exact model. The reduced model is derived using the exact solution of the distributed model and implementing the Karhunen-Loève-Galerkin procedure. To achieve an exact solution of the distributed model, method of lines is used. In the method of lines, accuracy of the solution depends on the number of grid points. To increase the accuracy, the number of grid points should be increased which will lead to a high order dynamic model. Such a model is not suitable for state estimation, optimization or control... 

On account of the exhausting nature and increasing daily cost of the fossil fuels, it seems that replacing the fossil fuels by an alternative source of energy is inevitable. Moreover, in the remote areas that the electricity network is not accessible, the use of distributed sources (DSs) such as solar energy and wind energy is advantageous. Continuity of the supply and voltage control of the load in spite of the stochastic nature of the generated power of the renewable energy resources are the main concerns in the distributed generation (DG) systems. In this thesis, stand-alone operation of a DG unit comprising a solar unit and wind turbine as primary sources of energy is considered. A... 

Ramjets have many applications and in the speed range of Mach numbers 2 to 5 show the best performance in terms of specific fuel consumption. In many applications, including some anti-air missiles, cannon and mortars, solid fuel ramjet can be used to improve the system performance.
In this thesis, two activities are performed:
A) One dimensional simulation of the internal flow field of solid fuel ramjet by development of available softwares.
B) Optimization of design parameters of a specific ramjet motor based on the above simulation.
The main target of this thesis is simulation of internal ballistics, design and optimization of a solid fuel ramjet for a particular... 

Nowadays, too much attention has been paid to Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC). One of the key components in SOFC is interconnect which plays an important role in SOFC performance. Interconnect can be either a metallic or ceramic layer that sits between each individual cell. The reduction in operating temperature of SOFC resulted in interests in using metallic interconnectors. However, the oxidation of these metallic materials is big challenge. Chromium (Cr), Nickel (Ni) and Iron (Fe) alloys have been employed to overcome this deficiency. However, these alloys bring another difficulty which is the presence of active elements such as Cr which reduces the performance of interconnects by forming... 

Crude oil and petroleum products at the time of extraction, production and transportation cause serious contaminations in soil, water and environment. Biological methods have shown a promising effect for the cleanup of these hydrocarbon pollutants. Bioremediation employs the metabolic activity of microorganisms capable of using oil as their energy and carbon source. Biological methods are also less expensive than other cleanup technologies such as incineration and landfill. Large number of microbial stains have been discovered in nature, capable to degrade oil and petroleum products. Biological cleaning of oil contamination by microorganisms occurs naturally in the environment. It has been... 

Relying on current fuels and technologies in vehicle industry in recent years has led to an enormous challenge such as air pollution, climate change and energy security. In the other hand, fossil fuel reservoirs are being depleted with an intensive rate. Nowadays, hydrogen, as a substitute for current fuels and hybrid, fuel cell and electric vehicles, as substitutes for current vehicular technologies are under research and development. Because of abundant advantages such as high efficiency and long cycle life, no depreciation for parts and scalability, fuel cell vehicles is of interest for many car manufacturers throughout the world and lots of them have demonstrated their prototype fuel... 

Inappropriate effects of fossil fuels and conventional power generation systems on the environment have necessitated a sustainable energy system for the next decade by growing interests in renewable energy systems. The world’s most fast-growing renewable energy resource is the wind energy. The main problem of wind power is the power fluctuations at the load side caused by the variable nature of wind speed, and the main issue in case of remote locations is the long-term storage of power generated by wind turbines. Batteries can be used to store a limited amount of energy for a short time. Although new advances in this field have been achieved, most common type of batteries is hardly able to... 

This thesis encompasses two parallel, but independent subjects as follow: The first part of the thesis deals with synthesis of bimetallic Ni-Au nanoparticles (Bi Ni-Au), and application of them as electrodes in the methanol fuel cells. The Bi Ni-Au nanoparticles for this purpose were synthesized by controlled reduction of HAuCl3 and NiCl3 in the aqueous medium using NaBH4 as reductant and PVP as stabilizer, and immobilized on the surface of a glassy carbon (GC) electrode by means of Nafion polymer. The obtained electrode then was conditioned in an alkaline solution by cyclic voltammetric method in potential range 100 -700 mV (vs. Ag/AgCl). Physicochemical characterizations of the... 

With the current demands in alternative methods of energy production and increased utilization of existing energy sources, microbial fuel cells have become an important field of research. In a microbial fuel cell, organic and inorganic compounds can be oxidized by microbial catabolism at the anode to generate direct electricity. A kind of microbial fuel cell (MFC) is sediment microbial fuel cell (SMFC) consists of an anode electrode embedded in the anaerobic sediment and a cathode electrode suspended in the overlying aerobic water. microorganisms produce electrons by oxidation of organic or inorganic compounds in the sediment at anode electrode, while oxygen is reduced in the water by... 

In this research performance of microbial fuel cells (MFCs) in continuous flow mode was studied. Different anodic chambers were tested and it was found that granular activated carbons (GACs) produced the highest power density (1228 mW/m3) in comparison with multiple anodes (731 mW/m3), single anode (294 mW/m3) and polymeric packings (40 mW/m3). It was also shown that in a plug-anodic chamber (PAC) the power output is reduced by reducing agitation of anodic volume. Adding more GACs to anodic chamber results in power increase, however by increasing occupied volume from 80% to 100% the power increase was negligible in result of cathodic reactions limitations. Feed flowrate was increased from... 

Focusing on fossil fuel to secure energy demand lead to big challenges. Hydrogen as alternative for fossil fuel has attracted a lot of attentions. Fuel cell with an electrochemical reaction which it’s byproducts are water and heat convert Hydrogen into electricity. High efficiency and low environmental pollution, persuade many researchers toward fuel cell commercialization. But problems such as high cost, high power oscillation and inertia, avoid fuel cell from significant development. One way to deal with these problems is using the fuel cell and battery hybrid system. In recent decade too many research has been made in utilizing this hybrid system in transportation. This project... 

In this work, a model was presented for an MCFC fuel cell with internal reforming and combustion chamber. The model consists of mass and heat transfer equations beside the chemical and electrochemical reaction rate equations. Velocity distribution due to reactions and temperature distribution along the cell is considered. The model has been simulated in steady state form using finite difference method in MATLAB package environment accompanied by the analysis of the dynamic behavior of cell using method of lines in Simulink environment. Simulation results have been validated with experimental data extracted from literature. The last part of the work concerns with sensitivity analysis of some...