Methane Steam Reforming Kinetics in Operating Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Methane Steam Reforming Kinetics in Operating Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Fan, L.

Verkooijen, A.H.M. (promotor)

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Process and Energy

2014-07-04

By 2040, electricity generation will account for more than 40 % of global energy consumption. Gains in efficiency through energy-saving practices and technologies – such as hybrid vehicles and new, high efficiency natural gas power plants – will temper demand growth and curb emissions. Different from the conventional thermal power plants, fuel cells are potentially more efficient than traditional heat engines since they are not limited by the maximum efficiency of the Carnot cycle. Rather, the efficiency of the fuel cell based power plant can be increased to about 70% when coupled with a gas turbine. However, the development of Solid-Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) is still facing a lot of challenges and a better understanding of the underlying internal steam reforming reaction is needed. To do this, a number of mathematical frameworks have been proposed in the last two decades to model the planar, the integrated planar, the tubular and the monolithic designs of the SOFCs. Mathematical models of the SOFCs are important tools in understanding and evaluating the effects of various fuels and operation parameters on SOFC performance. They are used by fuel cell scientists and developers to elucidate the processes within the cells and to optimize design factors of the cell such as materials. This work focuses on modelling of SOFC with Ni ? Y SZ anode and Ni ? GDC anode. To do this, the readily available Cycle-Tempo is used. Calculations of factors such as from Cycle-Tempo are compared with the simulated results from CFD generated from the FLUENT software. The calculated cell performance for SOFCs is strongly influenced by the kinetic parameter of the internal steam reforming reaction. Due to the lack of sufficient kinetic parameters for the SOFC of interest, experimental studies are conducted to find the methane steam reforming kinetic parameters which are subsequently applied to the simulation.

https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:435fbd02-db02-4d5a-b527-9194cb30aff3

978-94-6186-321-8

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

(c) 2014 Fan, L.