Abstract
The temperature uniformity and component concentration distributions in solid oxide fuel cells during operating processes can influence the cell electrochemical and thermal characteristics. A three-dimensional thermal-fluid numerical model including electrochemical reactions and water-gas-shift (WGS) reaction for a single channel solid oxide fuel cell was developed to study the steady-state characteristics, which include distributions of the temperature (T), temperature gradient (ΔT/Δx), and fuel utilization. It was shown that the maximum temperature (Tmax) changed with operating voltage and the maximum temperature gradient ((ΔT/Δx)max) occurred at the inlet of the channel of a solid oxide fuel cell by simulation. Moreover, the natural convection condition had a great influence on T and ΔT/Δx. The thermal stress generated by temperature differences was the key parameter and increasing the convection heat-transfer coefficient can greatly reduce the thermal stress. In addition, the results also showed that there were lower temperature gradients and lower current density at high working voltage; therefore, choosing the proper operating voltage can obtain better cell performance.
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The authors would like to thank for support of this work by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51376018).
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Zhang, Z., Wang, Y. & Ba, L. Analysis of Heat and Mass Transfer for a Single-Planar-Anode-Supported Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Considering Internal Reforming. J. Therm. Sci. 29, 697–707 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-019-1210-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11630-019-1210-9