Commercial Technology Research Articles

Optimum fenestration characteristics in mediterranean Tunisian context: An energetic, economic and environmental (EEE) study

This paper aims to investigate the energy performance of several techniques integrated into the fenestration system of an office building. The first step was to compare the simulated and real energy consumption of a case study of an office building located in Tunis City. In a second step, the study explores the impact of a glazing retrofit solutions on annual energy saving. To determine the possible energy savings for the existing office building in various climatic zones, we performed several simulations, using the Design Builder software.For these zones, the optimum window-to-wall-ratio (WWR), ensuring a compromise between daylighting and energy consumption, is found to be 40%. Then, for the chosen WWR, we evaluated a retrofit process involving existing commercial technologies such as double-glazed insulated windows, as well as innovative technologies consisting of intelligent coating, in addition to passive techniques including several shading concepts.It is found that, the double-glazed window with outside reveal depth of 20 cm equipped with both low-emissivity (LoE) and electrochromic (EC) coatings ensures the lowest annual energy consumption. Besides, energy savings depends on the climate zone; it reaches 23% in hot climates (ZT3) and almost 20% in cold (ZT1) and temperate climates (ZT2). The possibility of using electrochromic coating was excluded following the economic study because of its exorbitant cost. In fact, this type of renovation can lead to payback periods of up to 74 years for the cases treated.The optimized window designs consist in using a double-glazing window with a LoE coating, an outside reveal depth of 20 cm, and as a shading system (Overhang). These designs save 8 to 20% of energy and reduce CO2 emissions by 6 to 10 kg CO2/m2 per year, with a payback period of less than 6 years depending on the climatic zone.

Post‐Treatment of Metal Halide Perovskites: From Morphology Control, Defect Passivation to Band Alignment and Construction of Heterostructures

AbstractMetal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have witnessed a swift increase in power conversion efficiency in the past decade, emerging as one of the most promising next‐generation photovoltaic technologies for commercialization and low‐carbon energy generation. Through significant efforts in optimizing the processing techniques, high‐quality perovskite thin films can now be prepared with polycrystalline morphologies consisting of monolayer grains. Nevertheless, defects and microstructural disorders still form at the surface/heterointerface and in the bulk of the films. Post‐treatment of the as‐crystallized films has been intensively investigated for passivating these defects, being proved effective for improving the device performance. In this review, the versatile strategies for post‐treating the surface of perovskite thin films toward morphology control, defect passivation, and band alignment are discussed. The tailored surface properties are correlated to charge dynamics at interfaces and photovoltaic performance of PSCs. Since the perovskite heterostructures prepared by simple post‐treatments may suffer from degradation at high temperatures, the recent advances in preparing phase‐pure and stable perovskite heterostructures are also discussed. Finally, a perspective elaborating future opportunities for further enhancing the efficiency and stability of PSCs is provided.

Interoperable, Smart, and Sustainable Urban Energy Systems

The decarbonization of cities is a priority for the European Union (EU). Fossil fuel and gas supplies need to be replaced with local renewable energy sources with a relevant increase in efficiency within 20 years in order to cap environmental, social, and economic negative impacts, and this cannot do significant harm. In this context, smart city development frameworks focused on mitigation, adaptation, and measurement not only collaborate in providing governance for sustainability but also facilitate the materialization of such sustainability along lifecycle engineering processes for decarbonization solutions. To achieve these goals, we must face the interoperability challenge and make information accessible for engineering and sustainability governance systematically. A starting point is to validate the models, data, and harmonized metadata. In this paper, the authors provide results that validate the utility of a conceptual model for interoperable smart and sustainable urban energy systems (ISSUESs). The validation is carried out for an urban energy system with a high potential for decarbonizing southern European smart cities and integrating several commercial solar technologies using academic bibliography and natural language processing (NLP) techniques.

Inorganic Thin-Film Solar Cells: Challenges at the Terawatt-Scale

Thin-film solar cells have been referred to as second-generation solar photovoltaics (PV) or next-generation solutions for the renewable energy industry. The layer of absorber materials used to produce thin-film cells can vary in thickness, from nanometers to a few micrometers. This is much thinner than conventional solar cells. This review focuses on inorganic thin films and, therefore, hybrid inorganic–organic perovskite, organic solar cells, etc., are excluded from the discussion. Two main families of thin-film solar cells, i.e., silicon-based thin films (amorphous (a-Si) and micromorph silicon (a-Si/c-Si), and non-silicon-based thin films (cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper–indium–gallium diselenide (CIGS)), are being deployed on a commercial scale. These commercial technologies, until a few years ago, had lower efficiency values compared to first-generation solar PV. In this regard, the concept of driving enhanced performance is to employ low/high-work-function metal compounds to form asymmetric electron and hole heterocontacts. Moreover, there are many emerging thin-film solar cells conceived to overcome the issue of using non-abundant metals such as indium (In), gallium (Ga), and tellurium (Te), which are components of the two commercial thin-film technologies, and therefore to reduce the cost-effectiveness of mass production. Among these emerging technologies are kesterite CZTSSE, intensively investigated as an alternative to CIGS, and Sb2(S,Se)3. In this review, after a general overview of the current scenario of PV, the three main challenges of inorganic thin-film solar cells, i.e., the availability of (safe) metals, power conversion efficiency (PCE), and long-term stability, are discussed.

Leveraging Personas for Social Impact: A Review of Their Applications to Social Good in Design

Personas inform design by representing diverse user needs. Since their initial application in commercial technology contexts, personas have been adopted in several research domains for public good, such as health, accessibility, politics and civic society, education, sustainability, cybersecurity, and criminology. In this review paper, we analyzed 58 research studies that created personas in these domains, referred to as Personas for Social Good (PFSG). In most studies, PFSG was primarily exploratory and focused on initial methodology development. More than half (59%) neglected to discuss concerns with stereotyping or evaluate how personas contributed to improving social concerns in their respective domains. To facilitate a shift towards more socially conscious persona applications, we identified and critically examined the most comprehensive PFSG domain applications in our sample. Based on their strengths, we present an ecological framework to guide researchers in holistically aligning persona creation efforts with addressing critical social challenges.

Interaction of Heat Transfer Enhancement and Fouling in Operating Heat Exchangers

Interactions of heat transfer enhancement and fouling can occur due the change in nature of the surface, operating condition, or the fluid itself. Interactions arising relating to higher clean heat transfer coefficients, and higher wall shear stresses of the enhanced surfaces are discussed in this paper. On the lab-scale, enhancement was often achieved by static elements, such as wire wrapping on a heated rod in an annular flow. Lab-scale tests of necessity suffered from effects of relatively short duration of runs, and re-circulation of a batch of liquid with the danger of changing the fluid composition during experiment. Nevertheless, initial fouling rate results consistent with expected trends could be achieved for hydrocarbon fouling, and particulate fouling. There is a continued need to better represent and compare performance of plain and enhanced surfaces over prolonged operating periods in industrial heat exchangers, using commercial enhancement technologies. Example case studies are discussed which demand different methods of comparing performances. A daily averaged cost analysis is identified as a possible systematic approach on the evaluation of the economic benefit of the use of enhancement devices. This is illustrated for a case study example where tube insert is used as an enhancement option.

Wave Energy Power Take-off Validation with a Hydraulicly Actuated Rotary Dynamometer and a Bi-directional High-power DC Supply

There are many organizations working towards the commercialization of wave energy converter technologies and are advancing their designs through the technology readiness levels (TRLs). A critical step before the field deployment of prototype wave energy converters is the validation of the subsystems and components that are contained in the wave energy converter through laboratory testing and performance characterization. In 2021, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) developed and demonstrated a system for testing power takeoffs (PTO) with a low-speed, high-torque dynamometer and a grid-tied high-power DC power source and sink before field deployment. The hydraulic dynamometer allows for the simulation of PTO actuation from wave motion and is capable of a wide range of wave periods and heights which are represented as various speeds and torques from the dynamometer. The high-power bidirectional power supply allows for hardware in the loop and controller in the loop testing to be conducted on WEC power electronics. This presentation was made to describe the methods used by NREL research staff to test all components and sub-systems in the PTO of a novel wave energy converter before field deployment.

Special Issue of Interface on Commercialization of Electrochemistry and Material Science Technologies

Introduction to the Special Issue on on Commercialization of Electrochemistry and Material Science Technologies

Non-Invasive Portable Technologies for Monitoring Breast Cancer Related Lymphedema to Facilitate Telehealth: A Scoping Review.

Breast cancer related lymphedema (BCRL) is a common, debilitating condition that can affect up to one in five breast cancer surviving patients (BCSP). BCRL can significantly reduce the quality of life (QOL) of patients and poses a significant challenge to healthcare providers. Early detection and continuous monitoring of lymphedema is crucial for the development of client-centered treatment plans for post-cancer surgery patients. Therefore, this comprehensive scoping review aimed to investigate the current technology methods used for the remote monitoring of BCRL and their potential to facilitate telehealth in the treatment of lymphedema. Initially, five electronic databases were systematically searched and analyzed following the PRISMA flow diagram. Studies were included, specifically if they provided data on the effectiveness of the intervention and were designed for the remote monitoring of BCRL. A total of 25 included studies reported 18 technological solutions to remotely monitor BCRL with significant methodological variation. Additionally, the technologies were categorized by method of detection and wearability. The findings of this comprehensive scoping review indicate that state-of-the-art commercial technologies were found to be more appropriate for clinical use than home monitoring, with portable 3D imaging tools being popular (SD 53.40) and accurate (correlation 0.9, p 0.05) for evaluating lymphedema in both clinic and home settings with expert practitioners and therapists. However, wearable technologies showed the most future potential for accessible and clinical long-term lymphedema management with positive telehealth outcomes. In conclusion, the absence of a viable telehealth device highlights the need for urgent research to develop a wearable device that can effectively track BCRL and facilitate remote monitoring, ultimately improving the quality of life for patients following post-cancer treatment.

Polymer Boosts High Performance Perovskite Solar Cells: A Review

AbstractPerovskite solar cells (PSCs) with excellent photoelectric properties have attracted much attention in recent years. However, the solution manufacturing of PSCs inevitably introduces a large number of defects (both bulk and surface defects), which seriously affect the performance of PSCs. Defect passivation from additive engineering is an effective and simple strategy. Among these additives, polymers are increasingly attracting attention due to their excellent properties, such as adjustable structures, multiple functional groups, excellent stability, and low cost, which can further promote the commercialization of PSC technology. However, the application of polymers in PSCs have encountered some obstacles due to a lack of systematic studies, such as unelucidated interactions between polymers and perovskites, the frequent trial‐and‐error process used in material selection, and the lack of effective guidelines. In this review, the application of polymers in various layers of PSCs devices is first summarized. Then, three main roles of polymers in PSCs are summarized, including crystallization regulation, the mechanical stability enhancement of flexible perovskite solar cells (FPSCs), and their use as undoped hole transport materials (HTMs). More importantly, machine learning (ML) is proposed to design and select polymers as passivators and HTMs for PSCs. Finally, promising guidelines and recommendations are provided for the commercialization of PSCs.

Commercialization of Electrochemistry and Material Science Technologies

Commercialization of Electrochemistry and Material Science Technologies

Optimal use of electric propulsion for drag compensation in very low earth orbit on satellites with deployable solar panels

In recent years, thanks to advancements in commercial hardware technology miniaturization, small satellites have become more and more important and effective in the Space ecosystem. In previous papers it has been demonstrated that future smallest observation systems, operating at a lower altitude than traditional systems, have the potential for comparable or better performance, much lower overall mission cost, lower risk, shorter schedules, lower up-front development cost, more sustainable business model, mitigating the problem of orbital debris. Flying in very low Earth orbit requires the addition of a propulsion system capable of providing drag compensation. Thanks to its high specific impulse, electric propulsion is potentially well suited for this task. However, the use of an electric thruster often requires significant power that can be provided only with deployable solar panels. To minimize the drag, the solar panels should be aligned with the satellite orbital velocity. At the same time, to maximize the power input, the solar panel surfaces should point toward the Sun. In the majority of cases these two conditions are not met simultaneously, so an optimal trade-off is needed. This topic is investigated in this paper by the use of an orbital model of a generic satellite with deployable solar panels. The model is able to simulate any circular orbit of the satellite in any day of the year and calculate both the power input and the drag from the solar panels based on their inclination. An equivalent specific impulse is also defined taking into account the thrust that the electric thruster has to provide only to push the area of the solar panels required to power the propulsion system. The results show, as expected, that the sun-synchronous Dawn-Dusk (or Dusk-Dawn) orbit is the preferred one for the electric propulsion as the velocity vector and the Sun vector are almost orthogonal. In the other cases, at very low Earth orbit, even relatively small inclinations of the solar panels respect to the velocity vector have a significant impact on the drag produced, increasing the propellant consumption and the required power. Nevertheless, it is shown also that if the solar panels are aligned with the velocity, the power lost can be kept reasonable. The same analysis could also apply to a satellite in low Earth orbit that does not employ an electric thruster but still needs deployable solar panels because of other sources of high power consumption (e.g. the payload).

Investigating the Relationships Between Sustainable Management Activities, Technology Commercialization Capabilities, Sustainable Competitive Advantage and Market Performance: The Moderating Role of Supply Chain Impact

Objective: In today's complex environment, designing strategies that can help them improve market performance is essential. Method: The research is applied in terms of methodology and the type of reasoning is deductive. Data collection is based on numerical information and questionnaires and is quantitative. The study's statistical population includes managers and experts of 11 major dairy companies located in Tehran and Fars provinces in Iran. Among the distributed questionnaires, 306 questionnaires were returned to the researcher. In order to investigate descriptive statistics and preprocessing, SPSS 26 software and Smart PLS 3 software have been used for data analysis and statistics. Structural equation modelling (SEM) method is used to test the relationships between variables. Results: The results showed that sustainable management activities, technology commercialization capabilities (TCC) and sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) positively and significantly affect market performance. Also, the impact of the supply chain positively adjusts the causal relationship between TCC and market performance. Conclusion: Considering that the mentioned model in the research has a good fit and improves the market performance and SCA of the company, it can be concluded that companies can increase the company's market performance by paying much attention to the components of sustainable management activities.

Assessing the potential benefits of methane oxidation technologies using a concentration-based framework

Lowering the atmospheric methane concentration is critical to reducing short-term global warming because of methane’s high radiative forcing and relatively short lifetime. Methane could be destroyed at its emissions sources or removed from the atmosphere by oxidizing it to carbon dioxide and water vapor, greatly lowering the warming effect. Here we provide, to the best of our knowledge, the first estimate of the amount of methane that is emitted at a given concentration. We use this to assess the potential benefits (global temperature, air quality, and economic) of various technologies that could oxidize methane above specific concentration thresholds. We estimate that global mean surface temperature could be reduced by 0.2 °C ± 0.1 °C by continuously oxidizing all anthropogenic methane emitted above 1000 parts per million (the lowest concentration addressable with current commercial technologies). Continuously oxidizing all methane currently emitted above ten parts per million could cause 0.4 °C ± 0.2 °C of cooling. For the economic benefit of removing atmospheric methane to outweigh the associated energy cost, we show that reactors that use heat to oxidize methane must operate at most 3 °C ± 2 °C above ambient temperature while those that use light must convert at least 9% ± 8% of photons into oxidized methane molecules. Our framework can be used by scientists, engineers, and policymakers to better understand the connections between methane sources, including their emission rates and concentrations, and the technologies that can oxidize those emissions.

University Technological Entrepreneurship Platform as an Innovative Tool for Regional Economy Development in the Context of Russia’s Sovereignization

The formation of a regional strategy for the development of the economy is an important state task, which not only leads to an increase in the living standards of the population, but also contributes to its involvement, especially the younger generation in solving problems and removing restrictions on the progressive development of this process. The article studies a set of issues that characterize the directions of solving the problems of reducing dependence on external markets and development of the domestic economy, emerging problems that require solutions of regional authorities and the tools used to stimulate the introduction of innovative solutions. It has been established that university technological business platforms are becoming an effective innovative tool for economic development on the regional platform. Various approaches to the development of university technological business platforms, including organizational structure, funding mechanisms, technology commercialization and coordination between participants, were considered. A critical analysis of existing approaches to the formation, development of university technological business platforms was carried out and their strengths and limitations were highlighted. The experience of RZD OJSC on the implementation of the project «Platform of University Technological Entrepreneurship» with the participation of the Krasnoyarsk Institute of Railway Transport, within which start-up projects were developed, 70% of which are directly technologically related to the railway industry. The study confirmed the relevance of university technological business platforms in the development of the regional economy, indicated the need to improve the organizational aspects and mechanisms for the functioning of such platforms. The basic directions on improvement of stimulation of technological entrepreneurship and development of start-ups for breakthrough technological development of large companies that influence socio-economic development of the region are offered.

Perovskites: An Emerging Technology in Solar Space

The extent of interest which Perovsite technology is generating in solar research space is unprecedented. And there is a genuine rationale behind that. In the last one decade, the progress in efficiencies exhibited by Perovskite Solar Cells (PSCs) has gone up manifold. This is an outcome of the intensive research being done by various research organizations on efficiency enhancement of the PSCs and the various solar companies which are trying to bring this technology closer to large scale commercialization. The wide belief is that perovskites will be less expensive compared to conventional technology. While the perovskite technology is demonstrating a sea of opportunities, there is still a journey to cover. There are multiple research gaps on the road to commercialization of the perovskite technology which need to be addressed. The more important amongst them are durability and stability, rapid degradation due to UV, dissolution issue due to water exposure, degradation through oxygen and hysteresis behaviour. Having said that, the pace of research in solar space has been much faster compared to any other technology transformations the world has seen. And global warming and climate change related studies are further necessitating this pace to accelerate further. This article gives a brief history of perovskite, its technological progression, the research gaps as they stand today and what the future holds for this technology. Looking at the progress in perovskite technology, the world may not be far away from seeing a disruption in solar space.

Changes in Hole and Electron Injection under Electrical Stress and the Rapid Electroluminescence Loss in Blue Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Devices.

Blue quantum dot light-emitting devices (QLEDs) suffer from fast electroluminescence (EL) loss when under electrical bias. Here, it is identified that the fast EL loss in blue QLEDs is not due to a deterioration in the photoluminescence quantum yield of the quantum dots (QDs), contrary to what is commonly believed, but rather arises primarily from changes in charge injection overtime under the bias that leads to a deterioration in charge balance. Measurements on hole-only and electron-only devices show that hole injection into blue QDs increases over time whereas electron injection decreases. Results also show that the changes are associated with changes in hole and electron trap densities. The results are further verified using QLEDs with blue and red QDs combinations, capacitance versus voltage, and versus time characteristics of the blue QLEDs. The changes in charge injection are also observed to be partially reversible, and therefore using pulsed current instead of constant current bias for driving the blue QLEDs leads to an almost 2.5× longer lifetime at the same initial luminance. This work systematically investigates the origin of blue QLEDs EL loss and provides insights for designing improved blue QDs paving the way for QLEDs technology commercialization.

Electrochemical Study of Zinc Adsorption on Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia-Water Interfaces

Research has shown that zinc ions can mitigate the corrosion of the alloy materials in nuclear power plants in addition to reducing radiation contaminations. Understanding how zinc ions alter the interfacial structure of the alloy surface is therefore important in improving the life cycle of the materials and achieving higher burnups of the nuclear fuels. While the corrosion mitigation of zinc on nickel and stainless-steel alloys has been widely studied and reported, its effect on zirconium oxide surfaces, i.e. the oxide layer of zirconium alloys exposed to the aqueous solution, has rarely been reported. Meanwhile, zirconium oxide also serves as the solid oxide fuel cell electrolyte in energy storage. The study of the corrosion mitigation mechanism on zirconia could also contribute to the successful commercialization of SOFC technologies as cleaner and more efficient energy conversion electrochemical systems. In this work, we utilize the electrochemical techniques to study the interfacial structure changes under the influence of zinc ions on the yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) surfaces on the (100), (110), and (111) orientations in contact with aqueous solution with and without externally applied electric potentials. The experimental measurements indicated the modification of the interfacial structures by zinc on (100) and (111) surfaces is strongly influenced by the applied external electric fields, while the modification of surface structure by zinc ions is not as evident on the (110) surface. Our study also showed that the Zn2+ adsorption layers on the oxide surfaces could be better preserved by tuning the electric potential on the oxide substrates towards the negative potentials.

Nano-Functionalization of SOFC Electrodes Via Inkjet Printing

Introduction The future of the international accord on mitigating the impact of climate change is linked to the successful commercialisation and implementation of renewable energy technologies. The latter is strongly dependent on finding commercially viable methods for successful dimensional nano-functionalization of the ceramic materials utilized in the fabrication of various energy devices either in energy generation (fuel cells) or storage (batteries, supercapacitors). Inkjet printing digital methods combining scalability and low equipment cost with high-resolution patterning can be a feasible solution for some of the shortcommings of the conventional fabrication technologies. 3D functionalization - Composite solid oxide fuel cells LSCF/CGO cathodes were nano-engineered via “dual” inkjet printing infiltration. The nano-decorated microstructure was found to extend the active three-phase boundary and to promote adsorbtion – dissociation - surface exchange reactions. Composite La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ/Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.9 cathodes were subjected to “dual” inkjet printing infiltration of nitrate salt solutions in a single step procedure. After calcination in air at 700 oC the cathodes were decorated with Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.9 and CoxOy nano particles. The effects of as created nano-decoration on the electrochemical activity and the performance stabilty in the intermediate temperature range (500-700 oC) were investigated. The infiltration was found to extend the active three-phase boundary and to promote adsorbtion-dissociation- surface exchange reactions. Electrochemical impedance tests conducted on symmetrical cells showed a reduction in the polarisation resistance of between 1.5 and 7.0 times depending on temperature (500-700 oC). The nano-decoration led to substantially enhanced stability (0.7 Ω•cm2 at 550oC after 100 hours of aging for CGO:CoxOy infiltration). As the composite LSCF/CGO cathodes had already percolating ionic and electronic networks, a low level loading of nanoparticles was sufficient to lead to an efficient short-range extension of the TPB and the density of ORR reaction sites. The sequence of infiltration was shown to influence the efficiency of the ORR promotion. CoxOy:CGO infiltration expanded the available surface area and promoted the catalytical activity towards ORR reaction. The superior effect of CGO:CoxOy infiltration was assigned to the introduction of additional promotion mechanisms (see Fig. 1) resulting in better electrochemical performance at lower temperatures (<650 oC). Both infiltrations suppressed the Sr surface segregation but only CGO:CoxOy infiltrated cathodes showed substantially improved stability after 100 hours of aging. Scaling up - Single step inkjet printing infiltration with doped ceria Ce0.9Ye0.1O1.95 (YDC) and cobalt oxide (CoxOy) precursor inks was performed in order scale-up the modification of the doped ceria interlayer in commercial (50x50x1 mm size) anode supported SOFCs. The penetration of the inks through the mono-phase La0.8Sr0.2Co0.5Fe0.5O3-δ porous cathode to the Gd0.1Ce0.9O2 interlayer was achieved by optimization of inks rheology jetting parameters. The low temperature calcination resulted in densification of the Gd-doped ceria porous interlayer as well as decoration of the cathode scaffold with nano-particles (~ 20-50 nm in size). The I-V testing in pure hydrogen showed maximum power density gain of 20% at 700oC and 97% at 800oC for the infiltrated cells (see Fig. 1). The effect was largely assigned to the improvement in the interfacial Ohmic resistance. The EIS study of the polarization losses of the reference and the infiltrated cells revealed reduction in the activation and concentration polarizations losses at 700oC due to the nano-decoration of the La0.8Sr0.2Co0.5Fe0.5O3-δ scaffold surface. Such effect was not clearly detectable at 800oC where the drop of Ohmic losses was dominant. This work demonstrated that single-step inkjet printing infiltration, a non-disruptive low-cost technique, could produce significant and scalable performance enhancements in commercial SOFCs. Figure 1

Multiscale and Multiphysical Numerical Simulations of Solid Oxide Cell (SOC)

Electrochemical applications play a key role for the topic of “green hydrogen” for the de-carbonization of the energy and mobility sectors. Electrochemical systems and processes, including fuel cells and electrolysers, have witnessed several benefits over conventional combustion-based technologies currently being widely used in power plants and vehicles. The ceramic high-temperature technologies by means of SOC exhibits high efficiencies, with a thermoelectric conversion efficiency as high as 60% and a total efficiency of up to 90% in fuel cell operation and even higher in electrolysis mode. The SOC technology, therefore, sees a promising future in the production of green hydrogen and electricity.Providing high operating temperature, over 600 oC, the SOC system shows the capability to operate with diverse types of gas mixtures, for example, hydrogen, ammonia, and carbon-containing mixtures such as methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO) in fuel cell operation (SOFC) and steam and/or carbon dioxide (CO2) in electrolysis operation (SOEC). The design of the SOC stack enables a reversible operation (rSOC) between fuel cell and electrolysis modes. It indicates the SOC system can perform with high efficiencies in both operating modes, which also widens the scope of possible applications.Challenges remain when it comes to commercialization of the SOC technology, in both the investment costs (CAPEX) and operating costs (OPEX) aspects. From the technological and scientific point of view, the physical transport phenomena in SOCs need to be understood which can be done by the help of experimental and numerical investigations. Cheaper and long-lasting material alternatives may be found for the cell, stack and system development afterwards.Detailed experimental investigations usually require a lot of effort in time and data analysis. To promote the scientific and technological studies on the SOC technology, numerical investigations by using multiscale and multiphysical models are carried out in this work. The models include an in-house designed/written phase field model (PFM) 1, and an open-source based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, openFuelCell2 2 (based on OpenFOAM). The former accounts for the microstructure evolution of the Ni/YSZ composition. The latter addresses the multiphysical transport processes in different phases, i.e., ionic transfer in YSZ, electronic transfer in Ni, and the gas diffusion in the gas phase.The figure below shows the computational domain and different phases in the numerical simulations. The evolution of Ni/YSZ composition can be predicted by the PFM. It is supposed to reproduce the Ni agglomeration that has been observed in SOFC long-term experiments 3. The simulation result shown at the left-most is obtained by performing the PFM simulation (with 96 x 96 x 96 voxels) representing the microstructure change for a certain time duration. The computational domain (192 x 192 x 192 voxels) consists of three phases, namely, YSZ, Ni, and gas, as shown in the middle and on the right side. It is refined in each direction to better capture the triple phase regions (lower right) shared by the three phases, which refers to the active sites that enable the electrochemical reaction to be conducted. By applying different governing equations on these phases, the CFD model, openFuelCell2, can describe the transport phenomena numerically. Hence, the performance degradation of a SOFC due to Ni agglomeration can be captured by carrying out the simulations for different time durations. The effective properties may be derived as well so that they can be used in numerical simulations with larger scales.AcknowledgementThe authors would like to thank their colleagues at Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH for their great support and the Helmholtz Society, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as well as the Ministry of Culture and Science of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia for financing these activities as part of the Living Lab Energy Campus.References Q. Li, L. Liang, K. Gerdes, and L.-Q. Chen, Appl. Phys. Lett., 101, 033909 (2012). S. Zhang, S. Hess, H. Marschall, U. Reimer, S. B. Beale, and W. Lehnert, Computer Physics Communications, to be submitted (2023). C. E. Frey, Q. Fang, D. Sebold, L. Blum, and N. H. Menzler, J. Electrochem. Soc., 165, F357 (2018). Figure 1