Micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cell stacks

Ryan J. Milcarek, Michael J. Garrett, Jeongmin Ahn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Similar to the original direct flame fuel cell the flame-assisted fuel cell, which has a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) operating in combustion exhaust, can potentially simplify the fuel cell system and has applications in micro-Combined Heat and Power. Development and testing of a 9 micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cell stack is demonstrated in this work. Two different systems are investigated having 1) fixed fuel flow rate and varying air flow rate and 2) fixed total flow rate of air and fuel for the micro-Combined Heat and Power burners. The micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cell stack achieves a significant performance of 237 mW cm−2 in model methane combustion exhaust at 0.5 V and 790 °C with a lanthanum strontium manganite based cathode. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy reveals that the fuel cell ohmic losses are unaltered by variations in the exhaust species concentrations while the polarization losses increase with decreasing first-stage combustion fuel-air equivalence ratio. Variations in the combustion exhaust temperature effects both the ohmic and polarization losses.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)21489-21496
Number of pages8
JournalInternational Journal of Hydrogen Energy
Volume41
Issue number46
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 14 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Flame-assisted fuel cell
  • Fuel cell stack
  • Fuel-rich combustion
  • Micro-Combined Heat and Power
  • Micro-tubular solid oxide fuel cell
  • Solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
  • Fuel Technology
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cell stacks'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this