Volume 3: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part II

Electrochemical Macro-Scale Model of A Low Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cell with MIEC Electrolyte Alberto Cammarata, Luca Mastropasqua, Stefano Campanari

Abstract

This work presents a Macro-Scale electrochemical model of a low temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) with a MIEC electrolyte. Low temperature SOFCs potentially merge high efficiency due to relatively high temperature, presence of a solid electrolyte, and lower production costs (among others) compared to really high temperature ones. Therefore, there is great interest on them despite they have not been thoroughly studied yet. The model has been compared with a Micro-Scale one found in the literature which closely reproduces experimental data. Assuming electrochemical reactions occurring just at the electrodes/electrolyte interfaces as usually done in high temperature operation (with “classic” YSZ electrolyte) has been found not to be accurate enough, thus ionic ohmic loss in the electrodes has been accounted. The final polarization curves matching has been quite good, but solving the charge conservation equations within the electrodes would definitely enhance the model accuracy and stability.

Keywords SOFC, low temperature, MIEC, modeling, Macro-Scale