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Experimental Study of Internal Reforming on Large‐area Anode Supported Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
Author(s) -
Lim H.T.,
Yang C.,
Hwang S. C.,
Choi Y.J.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
fuel cells
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.485
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1615-6854
pISSN - 1615-6846
DOI - 10.1002/fuce.201400070
Subject(s) - steam reforming , solid oxide fuel cell , anode , exothermic reaction , materials science , endothermic process , methane , hydrogen , chemical engineering , methane reformer , cathode , oxide , proton exchange membrane fuel cell , analytical chemistry (journal) , hydrogen production , chemistry , electrode , fuel cells , adsorption , metallurgy , organic chemistry , engineering
The effect of endothermic internal steam reformation of methane and exothermic fuel cell reaction on the temperature of a planar‐type anode‐supported solid oxide fuel cell was experimentally investigated as a function of current density and fuel utilization. We fabricated a large‐area (22 × 33 cm 2 ) cell and compared temperature profiles along the cell using 30 thermocouples inserted through the cathode end plate at 750 °C under various conditions (Uf ∼50% at 0.4 A cm −2 ; Uf ∼70% at 0.4 A cm −2 ; Uf ∼50% at 0.2 A cm −2 ) with hydrogen fuel and methane‐steam internal reforming. The endothermic effect due to internal reforming mainly occurs at the gas inlet region, so this process is not very effective to cool down the hot spot created by the exothermic fuel cell reaction. This eventually results in a larger temperature difference on the cell. The most moderate condition with regards to thermal gradient on the cell corresponds to high fuel utilization (Uf ∼70%) and low current density (∼0.2 A cm −2 ). The electrochemical performance was also measured, and it was found that the current–voltage characteristics are comparable for the cell operated under hydrogen fuel and internal steam reforming of methane because of lower polarization resistance with high partial pressure of water vapor.