Continuum Mechanics of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Using Three-Dimensional Reconstructed Microstructures

Abstract

A solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is a device that converts the chemical energy of fuels into electrical energy (Singhal & Kendall, 2003). SOFCs have received much attention from researchers due to their promise of delivering relatively clean energy at high efficiencies (Singhal & Kendall, 2003). An SOFC consists of a few basic parts: an anode, a cathode, an electrolyte, and interconnect wires (Singhal & Kendall, 2003). The electrolyte in an SOFC is a solid oxide such as Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ). The porous anode is usually a ceramicmetal composite (so called cermet) such as the nickel-zirconia cermet (Ni-YSZ). The porous cathode is usually a composite of strontium-doped lanthanum manganite (LSM) and YttriaStabilized Zirconia (LSM-YSZ) (Singhal & Kendall, 2003) or a composite such as gadolinium-doped ceria-lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite (GDC-LSCF) (Anandakumar et al., 2010). Oxygen atoms undergo reduction on the porous cathode surface, and the resulting oxide ions are transported through the electrolyte to the porous anode. Here, the oxide ions react with the fuel (such as hydrogen). Hydrogen is oxidized, and the electrons of the oxide ions are liberated. The free electrons give rise to electric current (Singhal & Kendall, 2003).