Effect of bi-layer interconnector design on mass transfer performance in porous anode of solid oxide fuel cells

We propose a novel interconnector design, termed bi-layer interconnector, for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). It can disturb the fuel gas and air on the planes normal to the SOFC three-phase-boundary (TPB) layer. In this paper, a two-dimensional half-cell model is developed to study the concentration overpotentials in the fuel side of the SOFC stack with conventional and novel bi-layer interconnectors. The numerical results show that the novel bi-layer interconnector can increase the velocity of the fuel gas in the porous anode. The results of mole fraction distribution illustrate that the novel bi-layer interconnector can effectively disturb the fuel flow. The average H2 mole fraction in the porous anode of SOFC with bi-layer interconnector is about 4.7% higher than that of conventional SOFC. The average H2 mole fraction at TPB interface is about 9.2% higher. The concentration overpotential of the novel SOFC design is lower than that of the conventional SOFC design by 5%. It can enhance the mass transfer in porous electrode and improve the performance of SOFC.