A common tubular solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) design consists of segmented-in-series electrochemical cells fabricated onto the outside of a porous support tube. Predicting the performance of this type of SOFC requires a detailed understanding of the current density distribution within each cell. This distribution is strongly coupled to the activation, concentration, and Ohmic losses, which occur as a result of the physical transport processes within the cell. A new computer code, known as the SOHAB code, has been developed to simulate these physical processes and thus make predictions of cell performance. The simulation results show how the magnitude of each loss varies spatially within the cell, causing the calculated current density distribution to be very different from that predicted by the established purely Ohmic models. At low currents the cell behavior is dominated by activation losses producing a very flat distribution. At moderate currents the Ohmic losses become more important, and the distribution is peaked at the edges of the electrolyte. At high currents the increased concentration losses flatten the distribution in the middle of the cell but not near its edges where gases flow from the surrounding inactive regions and the losses remain small. At low and moderate currents, the calculated current density distribution is sufficiently flat that the assumption of a uniform distribution can be used in conjunction with a one-dimensional model. However, at high currents this simplified model overestimates the concentration loss as it cannot account for the improved mass transport near the electrolyte edges.
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May 2009
This article was originally published in
Journal of Fuel Cell Science and Technology
Research Papers
The Current Density Distribution in a Segmented-in-Series SOFC
B. A. Haberman,
B. A. Haberman
The Department of Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: b.haberman.01@cantab.net
Imperial College London
, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Search for other works by this author on:
A. J. Marquis
A. J. Marquis
The Department of Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: a.marquis@imperial.ac.uk
Imperial College London
, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Search for other works by this author on:
B. A. Haberman
The Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Imperial College London
, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UKe-mail: b.haberman.01@cantab.net
A. J. Marquis
The Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Imperial College London
, Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2AZ, UKe-mail: a.marquis@imperial.ac.uk
J. Fuel Cell Sci. Technol. May 2009, 6(2): 021003 (7 pages)
Published Online: February 23, 2009
Article history
Received:
March 17, 2007
Revised:
March 18, 2008
Published:
February 23, 2009
Citation
Haberman, B. A., and Marquis, A. J. (February 23, 2009). "The Current Density Distribution in a Segmented-in-Series SOFC." ASME. J. Fuel Cell Sci. Technol. May 2009; 6(2): 021003. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2971047
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