TY - JOUR
T1 - Connecting microstructural coarsening processes to electrochemical performance in solid oxide fuel cells
T2 - An integrated modeling approach
AU - Abdeljawad, Fadi
AU - Völker, Benjamin
AU - Davis, Ryan
AU - McMeeking, Robert M.
AU - Haataja, Mikko
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Energy Frontier Research Center on Science Based Nano-Structure Design and Synthesis of Heterogeneous Functional Materials for Energy Systems (HeteroFoaM) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (award DE-SC0001061). We also acknowledge support from the Center for Scientific Computing at the CNSI and MRL : an NSF MRSEC (DMR-1121053) and NSF CNS-0960316.
PY - 2014/3/15
Y1 - 2014/3/15
N2 - In solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), Ni coarsening in porous anodes that are comprised of Ni and yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) leads to changes in several microstructural attributes, which affect the electrochemical performance. Herein we present an integrated modeling approach, where a dynamic mesoscale phase field model is linked with a stationary macroscale electrochemical cell level model in order to assess the role of Ni coarsening on the performance of SOFCs. The phase field model is capable of capturing the morphological evolution of Ni and accounting for its polycrystalline nature, while the electrochemical model encompasses the entire set of processes of gas transport, electronic and ionic conduction as well as the electrochemical reactions. Microstructural features are extracted from the phase field model as anode systems evolve over time and employed as effective properties in the electrochemical model. Simulation results highlight the importance of Ni and YSZ particle size and ratio on both the microstructural stability and electrochemical performance of SOFCs. In particular, it is shown that, for the classes of microstructures employed in this work, coarsening of Ni particles can either improve or diminish the maximum power density relative to the as-sintered ones, depending on the initial particle size.
AB - In solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), Ni coarsening in porous anodes that are comprised of Ni and yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) leads to changes in several microstructural attributes, which affect the electrochemical performance. Herein we present an integrated modeling approach, where a dynamic mesoscale phase field model is linked with a stationary macroscale electrochemical cell level model in order to assess the role of Ni coarsening on the performance of SOFCs. The phase field model is capable of capturing the morphological evolution of Ni and accounting for its polycrystalline nature, while the electrochemical model encompasses the entire set of processes of gas transport, electronic and ionic conduction as well as the electrochemical reactions. Microstructural features are extracted from the phase field model as anode systems evolve over time and employed as effective properties in the electrochemical model. Simulation results highlight the importance of Ni and YSZ particle size and ratio on both the microstructural stability and electrochemical performance of SOFCs. In particular, it is shown that, for the classes of microstructures employed in this work, coarsening of Ni particles can either improve or diminish the maximum power density relative to the as-sintered ones, depending on the initial particle size.
KW - Electrochemical performance
KW - Microstructure
KW - Ni coarsening
KW - Phase field
KW - Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC)
KW - Topological evolution
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.121
DO - 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.10.121
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84889793386
SN - 0378-7753
VL - 250
SP - 319
EP - 331
JO - Journal of Power Sources
JF - Journal of Power Sources
ER -