All porous solid oxide fuel cells (AP-SOFC): a bridging technology between dual and single chambers for operation in dry hydrocarbons
Résumé
The anode deactivation by coking for hydrocarbon-feed SOFC is a chief obstacle towards industrialization. All Porous Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (AP-SOFC) is the latest technology allowing the controlled distribution of gaseous O2 at anode side, thus preventing deactivation and generating heat by auto-thermal reforming. The oxygen distribution is controlled by the porosity of a CGO electrolyte. In this AP-SOFC, the oxidative reforming of hydrocarbon streams consequently operate in a similar fashion to single chamber SOFC, but within a safer and better controlled process [1]. In our first electrolyte supported AP-SOFC, the peak power output only reached ~20 mW cm-2 with methane as fuel due to the large thickness of the porous electrolyte (2 mm). In this study, we show a 10-fold peak power output using a second generation AP-SOFC based on anode-supported porous thin-film CGO electrolyte (Fig. 1). In single cell test, stable OCV of 0.82V was obtained over 160 hours (Fig. 2). Moreover, continuous and stable operation in dry 6% propane for more than 120 hours without observable degradation in OCV was obtained, whereas the cell performance degraded almost 35% for dual chamber SOFC with dense CGO electrolyte only after 10 hours [2].