On the origin of degradation in fuel cells and its fast identification by applying unconventional online-monitoring tools

Vanja Subotić, Norbert H. Menzler, Vincent Lawlor, Qingping Fang, Stefan Pofahl, Philipp Harter, Hartmuth Schroettner and Christoph Hochenauer

Applied Energy, 2020, vol. 277, issue C, No S0306261920311107

Abstract: The key advantage of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) – high fuel flexibility – still remains the main challenge disturbing their stability, reliability and durability. Specific operating conditions induce and accelerate various degradation mechanisms and reduce the overall fuel cell lifetime. Identifying and predicting the onset of degradation at the preliminary stage is of crucial importance, in order to provoke appropriate countermeasures and to prolong the service time of the fuel cell technology. This is not possible when using available conventional monitoring tools. When employing appropriate online-monitoring tools the principle of which differs from the most common measurement of a linear stationary system, relevant information about the occurring failure modes can be obtained. An example for it is a total harmonic distortion (THD) tool, which is based on identification of the system non-linearity and its alternation from the stable state. Taking this into account, this study moves from the traditional concepts and we show that: (i) non-conventional methodologies can be used to identify relevant failure modes at their preliminary stage, (ii) it is possible to in-operando differentiate individual degradation mechanisms, and (iii) advanced unconventional online-monitoring tools are time-efficient and required measuring time can be reduced by factor up to 20.

Keywords: Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC); Online monitoring; Degradation; State of the Health (SoH) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115603

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