Spatially Resolved Measuring Technique for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Metzger ◽  
K. Andreas Friedrich ◽  
Günter Schiller ◽  
Caroline Willich
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells ◽  
Solid Oxide ◽  
Measuring System ◽  
Measuring Technique ◽  
Operating Parameters ◽  
Oxide Fuel ◽  
Fuel Utilization ◽  
Local Effects ◽  
Spatially Resolved

In order to optimize solid oxide fuel cells for operation in highly efficient systems, a new measuring system with segmented cells has been developed, which allows us to determine local effects and to identify critical operating parameters during operation. The setup of the measuring system and experimental results for two examples—influence of hydrogen content and fuel utilization on performance and influence of load on power density and fuel utilization at operation with gasoline reformate as fuel—are presented to demonstrate the potential of the spatially resolved measuring technique.

Electrochemical Behavior of Metal-Supported SOFCs Under High Fuel Utilization and Their Durability

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Antepara ◽  
L. Diaz ◽  
M. Rivas ◽  
L. Otaegi ◽  
N. Gomez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells ◽  
Oxidation Resistance ◽  
Electrochemical Behavior ◽  
Solid Oxide ◽  
Oxide Fuel ◽  
Fuel Utilization ◽  
Main Variable ◽  
Highly Porous ◽  
Low Porosity

The aim of this project was to study whether the oxidation resistance of cells is affected while working under high fuel utilization. A previous study measured the weak oxidation resistance for very porous samples (measured porosity ∼ 70%) in H2 with high H2O content (over 50%) in the interval from 600 to 800 °C. Thus, additional tests were carried out with cells. Crofer22APU-supported solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) were produced by scalable cost competitive routes. One of the highly porous cells (calculated porosity 45%) was run under high fuel utilization conditions (calculated fuel utilization 56%), and a further two in H2-50%H2O. Another cell, with low porosity (calculated porosity 20%), was kept working in the same H2-50%H2O atmosphere for many hours. Durability tests with cells of different porosities confirmed that this is the main variable concerning degradation issues while working under high fuel utilization.

Performance Comparison of Internal and External Reforming for Hybrid SOFC-GT Applications by Using 1D Real-Time Fuel Cell Mode

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Chen ◽  
Chen Yang ◽  
Nana Zhou ◽  
Nor Farida Harun ◽  
David Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Natural Gas ◽  
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Hybrid System ◽  
Solid Oxide ◽  
Oxide Fuel ◽  
Fuel Utilization ◽  
Internal Reforming

Abstract Solid oxide fuel cells integrated with gas turbine (SOFC-GT) systems are considered among the most promising power generation units, not only because of the high efficiency, low emissions and carbon capture ability, but also the flexibility to use different kinds of fuels such as natural gas, syngas and biogas directly. In the case of natural gas, Previous researches have demonstrated that solid oxide fuel cells possess the ability to utilize natural gas directly by reforming it inside the anode because of the high operating temperature. But the major problem of internal reforming is that it increases the temperature gradient at the leading edge of fuel cell which may lead to high thermal stress and damage the cells. On the other side, external reforming requires an additional reformer outside of fuel cell, which may increase the investment costs. Also, the amount of air needed to cool the fuel cell is doubled, compared with internal reforming. A full comparison between internal reforming and external reforming of the pressurized SOFC is needed for the hybrids application. In this paper, a real time equilibrium reformer model based on minimization of Gibbs free energy was built to couple with 1D real time solid oxide fuel cell model. An internal on-anode reforming SOFC stack configuration for hybrid SOFC-GT system application was compared with external reforming configurations with 800K, 900K and 1000K reforming temperatures. The results show that internal reforming provides better performance of SOFC stack in the case of high fuel utilization. However, the external reforming showed a higher stack efficiency and smaller stack size compared with on-anode reforming when keeping a relatively lower SOFC stack fuel utilization, necessarily for high hybrid efficiency. Results indicated that external and internal reforming of fuel needs to be optimized depending on different design conditions of the entire hybrid system in terms of efficiency and investment cost. This paper shows that the hybrid system provides the opportunities for thermal integration on performance and efficiency improvement over fuel cell anode reforming.

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