Experimental study of SOFC system heat-up without safety gases

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• 作者：M. Halinen ; O. Thomann ; J. Kiviaho
• 关键词：Solid oxide fuel cell ; System ; Reformer ; Heat-up ; Start-up ; Anode off-gas recycling
• 刊名：International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
• 出版年：2 January, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：39
• 期：1
• 页码：552-561
• 全文大小：1377 K

文摘

Premixed safety gas is conventionally used to keep the anode of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) under reducing conditions during heat-up. This article presents the results of an experimental study to heat up a SOFC system and stack without the said premixed safety gases, i.e. by utilizing a natural gas pre-reformer and anode off-gas recycling (AOGR). Firstly, ex-situ experiments were conducted to investigate the operability of a pre-reformer during system heat-up. It was found that any oxygen fed to the reformer hinders the reforming reactions at low temperatures. Secondly, based on the ex-situ findings, series of heat-up cycles were conducted with a complete 10聽kW system using AOGR and a planar SOFC stack. In these experiments it was found that the system heat-up is possible with fuel gas and steam only, without the need for premixed reducing safety gases. Use of the fuel gas instead of a premixed safety gas did not result in a significant performance loss in the SOFC stack. Therefore, such a heat-up strategy was developed for SOFC systems that reduces the need of premixed safety gas storage space and thus decreases the system cost.