Study on Optimization and Scale-up of Pressurized Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Abstract

The standard solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) performance is related to its chemical reaction, electrical resistance, gas diffusion polarization, and operating temperature. We start this paper by discussing the performance simulation from our research. A tubular-type SOFC has an axial direction distribution of the gas concentration, and its electrodes and electrolyte have an electric current density distribution. In addition, these distributions are important to the performance simulation. The analysis results were in good agreement with the experimental data, and this indicates that these are useful for a high performance SOFC design. The last part of this paper is about temperature distribution calculation for the SOFCs sub-module. Since performance change is by temperature, numerical thermal and fluid analysis is really important for SOFC module design. In this study, we discuss numerical analysis in SOFC module, considering the electrochemical /reforming reaction. The analysis results agreed well with the experimental data, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the prediction model.