Effective Conductivity of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes

Effective conductivity of SOFC electrodes is an important parameter for predicting the ohmic loss in SOFC.  This work investigates the effective conductivity of SOFC electrodes via numerical simulation.  The microstructures of porous electrodes are reconstructed numerically by packing spherical particles in a computational domain, followed by dilation process to simulate the sintering procedure.  The important tortuosity is computed and compared with literature data for model validation.  The effects of various parameters on the effective conductivity of the electrodes are investigated, including the particle size, material composition, and porosity.  The results are useful for understanding the microstructure properties of SOFC composite electrodes and for subsequent design optimization of SOFC electrodes.