2568
(General Student Poster Session Winner) Comprehensive Analysis of a Tubular, Reversible Solid Oxide Fuel Cell By Using a 3-D Computational Fluid Dynamics Model

Tuesday, 15 May 2018
Ballroom 6ABC (Washington State Convention Center)
J. Y. Yoo, J. Kang, and J. Bae (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)
Hydrogen technology has recently gained wide attention in the field of renewable energy. This technology needs to either consume hydrogen to generate electricity or produce the gas to store energy. A reversible solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) can perform the two tasks by simply changing its operating conditions. Experiments can determine the performance of the SOFC but has economic limitations in changing its design parameters. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, on the other hand, can test various design options at a relatively low cost. This study performed a CFD analysis of a tubular, reversible cell in its SOFC and SOEC modes in COMSOL Multiphysics 5.3. The model performed calculations by considering fluid dynamics, mass diffusion, heat transfer, and electrochemistry. The calculation results were then compared with experimental data to verify the model at various values of the cell voltage. The results showed that the hydrogen, steam, oxygen, and nitrogen distributions had certain, distinguishable effects from the model parameters. The results agreed with those from the literature both qualitatively and quantitatively. The IV data of the model matched with the experimental IV curves to an acceptable degree, further supporting the credibility of the model. Other authors who seek to model a tubular SOFC in the future can refer to this study as a reference. The results are also important in designing and building a stack of tubular, reversible SOFCs because the design parameters of the current cell can be adjusted to result in a more suitable cell for the stack build-up.