Effect of Cell Size on the Performance and Temperature Distribution of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells

Jae-Hyeong Yu and Chang-Whan Lee
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Jae-Hyeong Yu: Department of Mechanical Design and Manufacturing Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul 01811, Korea
Chang-Whan Lee: Department of Mechanical System Design and Engineering, Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul 01811, Korea

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: Molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) are high-operating-temperature fuel cells with high efficiency and fuel diversity. Electrochemical reactions in MCFCs are exothermic. As the size of the fuel cells increases, the amount of the heat from the fuel cells and the temperature of the fuel cells increase. In this work, we investigated the relationship between the fuel cell stack size and performance by applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Three flow types, namely co-flow, cross-flow, and counter-flow, were studied. We found that when the size of the fuel cells increased beyond a certain value, the size of the fuel cell no longer affected the cell performance. The maximum fuel cell temperature converged as the size of the fuel cell increased. The temperature and current density distribution with respect to the size showed a very similar distribution. The converged maximum temperature of the fuel cells depended on the gas flow condition. The maximum temperature of the fuel cell decreased as the amount of gas in the cathode size increased.

Keywords: molten carbonate fuel cell; size effect; stack; fluid dynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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