Advances in catalysts for internal reforming in high temperature fuel cells

Nanocomposite Catalysts for Steam Reforming of Methane and Biofuels: Design and Performance

“…Design of nanocomposite materials with high mixed ionic-electronic conductivity (MIEC) and oxygen mobility possessing a high and stable performance in real operation conditions is now considered as one of the most promising trend in developing new anode materials for IT SOFC (Primdahl & Mogensen, 2002;Atkinson et al, 2004;Wincewicz & Cooper, 2005;Dicks, 1998;Kharton et al, 2006;Marina et al, 1999;Xia & Liu, 2002;Zha et al, 2004;Ishihara et al, 2000) and structured catalysts for steam/autothermal reforming of gas and liquid fuels (Souza & Schmal, 2003;Domine et al, 2008;Sadykov et al, 2009). State-of-the art Ni/Y 2 O 3 -ZrO 2 (Ni/YSZ) cermet anodes of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) have excellent catalytic properties and stability in the oxidation of hydrogen fuel at SOFC operation conditions (Atkinson et al, 2004).…”

“…However, the lack of a hydrogen infrastructure and the unsolved hydrogen storage problem have initiated the research aimed at direct utilization of natural gas, which represents one of the key aspects of SOFC technology. Internal steam reforming (SR) is the most promising concept in using the natural gas (as well as bio-gas or bioethanol) as a fuel (Wincewicz & Cooper, 2005;Dicks, 1998). In this case, the reaction takes place directly in the anode compartment, allowing a better management within the stack of heat produced by the exothermic electrochemical oxidation and consumed by the endothermic reforming reaction.…”

Support for the high efficiency, carbon separation and internal reforming capabilities of solid oxide fuel cell systems

“…I agree with the authors that challenges exist with coking in SOFC anode compartments that process hydrocarbon fuels. But a certain amount of internal reforming with appropriate fuel steam content can typically be accomplished today without coking challenges [6,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. In addition, novel SOFC materials sets have been prominently shown to allow SOFC operation on hydrocarbon fuels without coking [24][25][26][27][28].…”

Effects of fuel processing methods on industrial scale biogas-fuelled solid oxide fuel cell system for operating in wastewater treatment plants

“…According to this figure, the composition of the biogases is located above the carbon deposition boundary curves, indicating carbon deposition may occur over the anode catalyst. Carbon deposition deactivates the anode catalyst for the electrochemical and chemical reactions in anode and reduces the performance of the SOFC stack gradually [20][21][22][23][24][25]. Therefore, appropriate fuel processing in a biogas-fuelled SOFC system should be considered to prevent this coking problem.…”