Numerical Modeling for the Performance of Reversible Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

Abstract

In this study, the performance of solid oxide cells (SOCs) under both electrolysis mode and fuel cell mode is investigated via in-house developed high fidelity multiphysics simulations. The full parameter space with various fuel/steam supply conditions is explored to investigate the trends of button cell performance under different working loads. For each specific working loads, a global minimum resistance is found, but the conditions for the global minimum resistance shift for different working loads under different working modes. The trends are also verified by the good agreements between simulations and experiments. Furthermore, the performance degradation due to Ni redistribution in the active layer of hydrogen/steam electrode is also investigated by implementing the microstructural properties change into the developed model. The results show that main performance degradation occurs on the high frequency range (> 1000 Hz), indicating that the Ni redistribution inside the active layer mainly affects the charge transfer processes in the hydrogen/steam electrode. This study can provide guidance for the design of reversible solid oxide fuel cell (r-SOFC) system as well as performance stability improvements.