Effects of testing configurations and cell geometries on the performance of a SOFC: A modeling approach

A two-dimensional electrochemical model including mass and charge transfer has been developed to illustrate the effects of testing configurations and cell geometries on SOFC’s performance. The model is favorably validated by the well agreeable experimental results. It is shown that the separation of anode and cathode overpotential by three-electrode method is essentially impractical for anode-supported SOFCs. It is also found that testing configuration has little effect on cell performance due to the high electrical conductivity in anode. Furthermore, because the effective resistance of electrolyte is lower for asymmetric cells than for symmetric cells, cell performance of a symmetric cell is smaller than that of an asymmetric cell. Discrepancy in cell performance is shown to increase with increasing the thickness of electrolyte or decreasing the cathode radii.