Development of a charge-transfer distribution model for stack simulation of solid oxide fuel cells

Abstract

An overpotential model for planar solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is developed and applied to a stack numerical simulation. Charge-transfer distribution within the electrodes are approximated using an exponential function, based on which the Ohmic loss and activation overpotential are evaluated. The predicted current-voltage characteristics agree well with the experimental results, and also the overpotentials within the cell can reproduce the results obtained from a numerical analysis where the distribution of the charge-transfer current within the electrodes is fully solved. The proposed model is expected to be useful to maintain the accuracy of SOFC simulations when the cell components, consisting of anode, electrolyte and cathode, are simplified into one layer element.