Abstract
This paper studies the robustness of off-shore solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) installations and the nature and causes of possible cell degradation in marine environments. Two important, cathode-related, impediments to ensuring SOFC reliability in off-shore installations are: cathode degradation due to salt contamination and oxygen depletion in the air supply. Short-term and long-term tests show the effect of salt contamination in the cathode feed on cell performance, and reveal the underlying cause of the degradation seen. SEM/X-ray Diffraction/(XRD) analyses made it possible to identify salt taken up in the cathode microstructure after the short-term testing while the macroscopic cell structure remained intact after the short-term tests. The long-term degradation was found to be more severe, and SEM images showed delamination at the cathode/electrolyte interface with salt present, something that was not seen after long-term testing without salt. The effect of oxygen depletion on the performance was also determined at three different temperatures using I-V curves.
Highlights
Fuel cells represent an important innovation within the energy conversion industry, converting the chemical energy in fuels, e.g., hydrogen or, in the case of high-temperature fuel cells, hydrocarbon fuels, directly to electricity without, as in combustion, the detour around heat energy with the need to convert this heat energy to mechanical or electrical energy, a process which is subject to the Carnot efficiency limitation
This cell was initially operated without any salt contamination for 70 h and the cell voltage remained almost unchanged during this period
After salt had been introduced to the cathode at a concentration of 1.6 ppm for 14 h, the performance of the cell remained almost the same as it was without contamination
Summary
Fuel cells represent an important innovation within the energy conversion industry, converting the chemical energy in fuels, e.g., hydrogen or, in the case of high-temperature fuel cells, hydrocarbon fuels, directly to electricity without, as in combustion, the detour around heat energy with the need to convert this heat energy to mechanical or electrical energy, a process which is subject to the Carnot efficiency limitation. Fuel cells have longer lifetime and offer significantly higher power densities than batteries and are smaller and lighter. Like batteries, they are suitable for applications which require only low power output, such as laptop computers and other portable electronic devices and mobile phones [1]. Lies an important challenge in fuel cell research and development today [2,3]
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