Analytical modeling of polarizations in a solid oxide fuel cell using biomass syngas product as fuel

Abstract An analytical model is developed to study fuel type effect on polarizations and performance of SOFC. We consider especially two types of fuel: pure hydrogen and syngas (mixture of H2 and CO) produced by biomass gasification. The proposed model is based on simultaneous direct oxidation of H2 and CO at the anode side and uses the dusty-gas model with appropriate diffusion coefficient (binary or mixture coefficient in porous material) to evaluate the concentration polarization and the Butler–Volmer equation to calculate the activation polarization when ohmic polarization is expressed by the well known Ohm’s law. Results analysis show that a fraction of CO of about 24% in syngas improves the performance of SOFC by 23% compared to that obtained by pure H2.

[1]  Yoshio Matsuzaki,et al.  Evaluation and modeling of performance of anode-supported solid oxide fuel cell , 2000 .

[2]  S. Cocchi,et al.  A global thermo-electrochemical model for SOFC systems design and engineering , 2003 .

[3]  Phillip N. Hutton,et al.  A macro-level model for determining the performance characteristics of solid oxide fuel cells , 2004 .

[4]  S. Campanari,et al.  Comparison of Finite Volume SOFC Models for the Simulation of a Planar Cell Geometry , 2005 .

[5]  M. Fowler,et al.  Performance comparison of Fick’s, dusty-gas and Stefan–Maxwell models to predict the concentration overpotential of a SOFC anode , 2003 .

[6]  J. Young,et al.  Thermodynamic and transport properties of gases for use in solid oxide fuel cell modelling , 2002 .

[7]  I. Yasuda,et al.  3-D model calculation for planar SOFC , 2001 .

[8]  R. Kee,et al.  A general mathematical model for analyzing the performance of fuel-cell membrane-electrode assemblies , 2003 .

[9]  E. Achenbach.  Three-dimensional and time-dependent simulation of a planar solid oxide fuel cell stack , 1994 .

[10]  S. Chan,et al.  A complete polarization model of a solid oxide fuel cell and its sensitivity to the change of cell component thickness , 2001 .

[11]  S. Campanari,et al.  Definition and sensitivity analysis of a finite volume SOFC model for a tubular cell geometry , 2004 .

[12]  M. Khaleel,et al.  A finite element analysis modeling tool for solid oxide fuel cell development: coupled electrochemistry, thermal and flow analysis in MARC® , 2004 .

[13]  Paola Costamagna,et al.  Electrochemical model of the integrated planar solid oxide fuel cell (IP-SOFC) , 2004 .

[14]  B. Haberman,et al.  Three-dimensional simulation of chemically reacting gas flows in the porous support structure of an integrated-planar solid oxide fuel cell , 2004 .