Anode Supported Single Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cell in CH[sub 4]-Air Mixture

Abstract

In this study, yttrium-stabilized zirconia ͑YSZ͒ thin films 1-2 m thick electrolyte have been prepared using NiO-YSZ anode as substrates. Fuel cell test was conducted with the single chamber configuration in methane-air gas mixture using (La,Sr)(Co,Fe)O 3 ͑LSCF͒ as the cathode. Test results showed that the open-circuit voltage to be Ͼ0.8 V, with power density as high as 0.12 W cm Ϫ2 . It was also shown that gas flow rate has a large influence on the performance of the fuel cell, which indicates the importance of the geometrical design for anode support fuel cell system.

Single-Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Technology—From Its Origins to Today’s State of the Art

“…Fuel utilization and cell efficiency of real SC-SOFC systems, however, are significantly lower than the ones predicted by Demin et al Anode-supported SC-SOFCs showed fuel utilization ranging from approximately 1% [88] to 2.4% [28] and an efficiency of about 1% [25]. For a fully-porous SC-SOFC, the fuel utilization was estimated to be 4-8% [87].…”

“…Due to the use of a gas mixture, novel cell configurations such as fully porous and single-face SC-SOFCs with coplanar electrodes become possible that could not work under conventional, dual-chamber operating conditions. Moreover, the exothermic fuel oxidation reactions over the SC-SOFC electrode can cause a rise of the effective cell temperature by up to 100 °C [26][27][28], allowing lower operating temperatures and rapid start-ups. This heat release can lead to higher power densities in SC-SOFCs than in dual-chamber SOFCs at nominally lower furnace temperatures.…”

“…Fuel utilization of SC-SOFC systems is commonly evaluated by calculating the current efficiency according to Equation (10) [28,87,88]. However, this approach does not take into account the utilization of fuel for the generation of heat by the exothermic fuel reactions [26,89].…”

“…Jasinski et al [53] were the first group of investigating anode-supported SOFCs operated in single-chamber conditions. While Hibino et al [93] had observed an increase in cell performance when decreasing the electrolyte thickness down to 0.15 mm in planar electrolyte-supported SC-SOFCs, the anode-supported cell configuration enabled further reduction of the electrolyte thickness down to a few tens of micrometers [28,96,144]. Anode-supported SC-SOFCs exhibited the highest power output measured so far in SC-SOFC technology [145] and were operated at temperatures down to 200 °C [146].…”

Numerical Study of Heterogeneous Reactions in an SOFC Anode With Oxygen Addition

“…The 25 m thick combustion layer mimics the reactor entrance, where an extremely rapid variation of temperature, velocity, and transport coefficients occurs. 5 The heat release in this layer not only provides the heat for the endothermic steam reformation, 2 but also leads to a significant temperature rise, verified both experimentally by several groups 6,[20][21][22] and numerically by our previous work. 16 We also need to reiterate that the interpretation of syngas production by way of methane partial oxidation is inappropriate anywhere within the anode, as shown by the discussions about the three-layer structure.…”