Experimental Investigations and Modeling of Direct Internal Reforming of Biogases in Tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

• Published in: Fuel cells (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 697 - 710
• Main Authors: Lanzini, A., Leone, P., Pieroni, M., Santarelli, M., Beretta, D., Ginocchio, S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim WILEY-VCH Verlag 01-10-2011; WILEY‐VCH Verlag
• Subjects: Biogas; Experimental; Modeling; Reforming; SOFC; Tubular
• ISSN: 1615-6846; 1615-6854
• DOI: 10.1002/fuce.201000173

Biogas‐fed Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) systems can be considered as interesting integrated systems in the framework of distributed power generation. In particular, bio‐methane and bio‐hydrogen produced from anaerobic digestion of organic wastes represent renewable carbon‐neutral fuels for high efficiency electrochemical generators.
With such non‐conventional mixtures fed to the anode of the SOFC, the interest lies in understanding the multi‐physics phenomena there occurring and optimizing the geometric and operation parameters of the SOFC, while avoiding operating and fuel conditions that can lead to or accelerate degradation processes.
In this study, an anode‐supported (Ni‐YSZ) tubular SOFC was considered; the tubular geometry enables a relatively easy separation of the air and fuel reactants and it allows one to evaluate the temperature field of the fuel gas inside the tube, which is strictly related to the electrochemical and heterogeneous chemical reactions occurring within the anode volume.
The experiments have been designed to analyze the behavior of the cell under different load and fuel utilization (FU) conditions, providing efficiency maps for both fuels.
The experimental results were used to validate a multi‐physics model of the tubular cell. The model showed to be in good agreement with the experimental data, and was used to study the sensitive of some selected geometrical parameters modification over the cell performances.