AbstractExtensive literature information on experimental thermodynamic data and theoretical analysis for depositing carbon in various crystallographic forms is examined, and a new three-phase diagram for carbon is proposed. The published methods of quantitative description of gas-solid carbon equilibrium conditions are critically evaluated for filamentous carbon. The standard chemical potential values are accepted only for purified single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT). Series of C-H-O ternary diagrams are constructed with plots of boundary lines for carbon deposition either as graphite or nanotubes. The lines are computed for nine temperature levels from 200°C to 1000°C and for the total pressure of 1 bar and 10 bar. The diagram for graphite and 1 bar fully conforms to that in (Sasaki K, Teraoka Y. Equilibria in fuel cell gases II. The C-H-O ternary diagrams. J Electrochem Soc 2003b, 150: A885–A888). Allowing for CNTs in carbon deposition leads to significant lowering of the critical carbon content in the reformates in temperatures from 500°C upward with maximum shifting up the deposition boundary O/C values by about 17% and 28%, respectively, at 1 and 10 bar.
A typical operating temperature of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is quite high above 750 °C and affects the thermomechanical behavior of the cell. Thermal stresses may cause microstructural instability and sub-critical cracking. Therefore, a joint analysis by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural mechanics based on the finite element method (FEM) was carried out to analyze thermal stresses in a planar SOFC and to predict potential failure locations in the cell. A full numerical model was based on the coupling of thermo-fluid model with the thermo-mechanical model. Based on a temperature distribution from the thermo-fluid model, stress distribution including the von Mises stress, shear stress as well as the operating principal stress were derived in the thermo-mechanical model. The FEM calculations were performed under different working conditions of the planar SOFC. The highest total stress was noticed at the lower operating voltage of 0.3 V, while the lowest total stress was determined at the voltage of 0.7 V. The obtained stress distributions allowed a better understanding of details of internal processes occurring within the SOFC and provided helpful guidance in the optimization of a new SOFC design.
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