Effect of Electrolyte Thickness on Electrochemical Reactions and Thermo-Fluidic Characteristics inside a SOFC Unit Cell

Jee Min Park, Dae Yun Kim, Jong Dae Baek, Yong-Jin Yoon, Pei-Chen Su and Seong Hyuk Lee
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Jee Min Park: School of Mechanical Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 156-756, Korea
Dae Yun Kim: School of Mechanical Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 156-756, Korea
Jong Dae Baek: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Yong-Jin Yoon: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Pei-Chen Su: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Seong Hyuk Lee: School of Mechanical Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 156-756, Korea

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-15

Abstract: We investigated the effect of electrolyte thickness and operating temperature on the heat and mass transfer characteristics of solid oxide fuel cells. We conducted extensive numerical simulations to analyze single cell performance of a planar solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) with electrolyte thicknesses from 80 to 100 ?m and operating temperatures between 700 °C and 800 °C. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code was utilized to simulate the transport behavior and electrochemical reactions. As expected, the maximum power density increased with decreasing electrolyte thickness, and the difference became significant when the current density increased among different electrolyte thicknesses at a fixed temperature. Thinner electrolytes are beneficial for volumetric power density due to lower ohmic loss. Moreover, the SOFC performance enhanced with increasing operating temperature, which substantially changed the reaction rate along the channel direction. This study can be used to help design SOFC stacks to achieve enhanced heat and mass transfer during operation.

Keywords: solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC); computational fluid dynamics (CFD); heat and mass transfer; electrolyte thickness; operating temperature (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: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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