A three-dimensional numerical model of a single-chamber solid oxide fuel cell

Naveed Akhtar, Stephen Decent, Daniel Loghin, Kevin Kendall

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

43 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze the hydrodynamic/electrochemical performance of a solid oxide fuel cell operating on nitrogen diluted hydrogen/oxygen mixture. In this respect, a three-dimensional numerical model of a single-chamber solid oxide fuel cell (SC-SOFC) is developed. The model incorporates the coupled effects of fluid flow in a rectangular duct with mass transport in porous electrodes, selective electrochemical reactions (i.e. hydrogen oxidation on anode and oxygen reduction on cathode) on individual electrodes while operating on nitrogen diluted hydrogen-oxygen mixture. Results show the effect of depletion of gaseous mixture due to hydrogen and oxygen consumption along the flow direction. The model can predict hydrodynamic/electrochemical effects by varying the porosity of the gas diffusion electrodes/catalyst layers. The model is formulated in COMSOL Multiphysics 3.4, a commercial Finite Element Method (FEM) based software package. (c) 2009 Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8645-8663
Number of pages19
JournalInternational Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Volume34
Issue number20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2009

Keywords

  • Numerical model
  • Solid oxide fuel cell
  • COMSOL Multiphysics
  • Fuel-oxidant mixture
  • Single-chamber

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