Gas distribution inside an MCFC

Of all the fuel cells currently available or under investigation, molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) are one of the most technologically suitable for the production of electrical energy. However, their study and design needs to be developed on two different scales: at the plant scale for the optimisation of the entire system and the integration of the different components and at the cell scale for the analysis of the electro-chemical reactions and the determination of the local operating constraints. For this reason the author, in his PhD thesis, is analysing the optimisation of a 1 MW MCFC energy plant system and examining the fluid-dynamic characterisation of the anodic and cathodic gas distributions. In this work, the finite element model developed for the simulation of the fuel cell current collector will be explained from a fluid-dynamic point of view. Due to the geometrical complexity of this component and the exhaustive computational resources necessary for the study, it was essential to identify a symmetrical module on which to focus. The results of this simulation, in terms of non-dimensional head losses as a function of the Reynolds number, will be presented and discussed. The FEM analysis was carried out with Comsol Multiphysics © software.