Start-up and operation characteristics of a flame fuel cell unit

By Yuqing Wang and Hongyu Zeng and Tianyu Cao and Yixiang Shi and Ningsheng Cai and Xiaofeng Ye and Shaorong Wang
Published in Applied Energy NULL 2016

Abstract

This work aims to investigate a black start-up process for micro cogeneration (combined heat and power, CHP) systems based on solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). A novel micro-CHP system concept using a flame fuel cell (FFC) for start-up is proposed. An \FFC\ unit is experimentally implemented and studied by integrating a porous media burner with a micro-tubular SOFC. The \FFC\ is demonstrated to start up within seconds with the fuel-rich combustion of a methane-air mixture. The porous media burner acts as a non-catalytic fuel processor for the \SOFC\ with a maximum methane reforming efficiency of 49%. The flame fuel cell performance is tested for various equivalence ratios at a fixed inlet gas velocity of 0.15 m/s. The power reaches a significant value of 1.5 W at 0.7 V with a single fuel cell when operating with a fuel-rich flame at the equivalence ratio of 1.6. A flame fuel cell unit with multi-cell configurations has the potential to provide heat and power simultaneously for micro-CHP systems during the start-up process without an external energy source.

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