Novel diagnostic tools and techniques for monitoring and control of SOFC stacks - understanding mechanical and structural change

Completed

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells, Stationary applications)
Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells, Mobile applications)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Metallurgy and Materials)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Chemical Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor NP Brandon
Earth Science and Engineering
Imperial College London

Standard

EPSRC

01 June 2015

30 November 2018

42 months

£800,469

Energy

London

Energy : Energy

Professor NP Brandon, Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London

Dr R J Dawson, Engineering, Lancaster University

The Republic of Korea has world leading expertise in the deployment and scale up of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technologies. The UK has world class expertise in underpinning science and engineering of SOFC materials and devices. Large-scale trials by HK Oil and others have revealed unsatisfactory durability at steady state operating conditions in the anode supported SOFC stacks under development in Korea, as well as poor tolerance to thermal cycling.This reflects that fact that scaling up SOFC technology introduces additional challenges related (in particular) to non-uniform distribution of reactants, products and temperature within the fuel cell stack. Some steady state degradation can be attributed to classical SOFC issues of cathode poisoning, phase segregation and anode Ni coarsening. However, rapid failure, cycling intolerance and step changes in performance are most likely associated with mechanical issues. Understanding the thermal and mechanical environment of the cells in a stack under different conditions and during cycling is therefore key to improving the design and the operating regime of the system to give maximum durability, as these can manifest as additional mechanical and chemical strains within the ceramic materials used for SOFC fabrication, resulting in degradation and in extreme cases failure. Commercial development of SOFC stacks and systems requires a reduction in degradation rate, and an increase to mean time to failure.To address this it is necessary to be both able to monitor the conditions within the fuel cell stack, relating these to state of health, and then using this information to better control the system to maintain stack life, or engineer a controlled shut down so that components can be replaced, extending system life. These advanced monitoring techniques when coupled with validated predictive simulation capability will allow new cell and stack configurations to be developed for high durability and performance.This proposal seeks to develop two novel diagnostic techniques, pioneered by UK partners, and apply them to advanced cell testing and characterisation at partners in Korea . The measurements are used to validate models developed in the UK to relate the measured data to degradation and failure modes, transferring this to Korean partners to offer the potential for real time monitoring and control of SOFC stacks. This will give valuable understanding required to refine and develop the next generation of SOFC systems in the most time efficient manner, and have wider impact on UK and other international developers. The programme will support an exchange of researchers between the UK and Korean partners, supported by two research workshops in the UK, and one in Korea.

05/01/15