Numerical Modelling of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Role of Various Cell Parameters on Performance

O. Ighodaro[1], K. Scott[1]
[1]Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
Published in 2013

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are expected to play a major role in future energy systems due to their wide range of applications, high energy efficiency, environmental friendliness and good fuel flexibility. While conventional high temperature SOFCs operate at about 1000C, there is growing interest in intermediate temperature SOFCs which operates between 600C and 800C allowing for wider range of materials, stability and reduced cost of production. A fully coupled computational fluid dynamics model predicting the performance of a planar solid oxide fuel cell at intermediate temperature has been developed using the finite element based package COMSOL Multiphysics®.