An Isothermal Study of the Electrochemical Performance of Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Abstract

A two-dimensional along the channel micro-scale isothermal model of a SOFC is developed and validated against experimental data and other simulated results from literature. The steady state behaviour of the cell was determined by numerical solution of the combined transport, continuity and kinetic equations. An important characteristic of the model is the consideration of the triple phase boundary as a distinct layer. The model is capable of predicting the cell performance including polarisation behaviour and power output. The model is used to study the effect of the support structure, geometric parameters and the effect of operating conditions on cell performance. Several parametric studies include the effect of operating conditions and geometric parameters on cell performance with a view to optimising the cell. The simulation results showed that the anode supported SOFC displayed the best performance with the activation and ohmic overpotentials being responsible for most of the voltage losses in the cell.

Development of high performance and low‐cost solid oxide fuel cell stacks: Numerical optimization of flow channel geometry

“…The numerical model is solved for voltage values ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 V with 0.1 V increment under steady state conditions at an isothermal operating temperature of 800°C. Generally, for simplicity, the cell is assumed to be in isothermal steady‐state conditions like in the similar literature 42‐46 . The parameters used in the model are given in Table 2.…”

“…The numerical model is solved for voltage values ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 V with 0.1 V increment under steady state conditions at an isothermal operating temperature of 800 C. Generally, for simplicity, the cell is assumed to be in isothermal steady-state conditions like in the similar literature. [42][43][44][45][46] The parameters used in the model are given in Table 2. Since the experimental cell contains 13 flow channels, the anode and cathode flow rates used in numerical simulations are defined as 1/13 of those in experimental studies (ie, ~0.023 NL/min 3 wt% humidified hydrogen and ~0.069 NL/min air, respectively).…”

A short review on the modeling of solid-oxide fuel cells by using computational fluid dynamics: assumptions and boundary conditions

“…Generally, for SOFC modeling, the assumptions made for the flow are as follows: the flow is laminar and incompressible, and gases behave as ideal gases [20]. Laminar and incompressible flow assumptions are made because flow velocity in an SOFC operation, as well as the pressure drop across the channel, is very small [18,19]. Therefore, these assumptions are appropriate for SOFC modeling.…”