Modeling of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrodes from fabrication to operation: Correlations between microstructures and electrochemical performances

[Display omitted] •Solid oxide fuel cell electrode microstructure is modeled from fabrication to operation.•1D lattice Boltzmann model is used for fast evaluation of electrode overpotential.•Time-evolutions of the microstructure parameters and overpotential are studied.•Correlations between microstr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Energy conversion and management 2019-06, Vol.190, p.1-13
Main Authors:	Yan, Z., He, A., Hara, S., Shikazono, N.
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Cathodes Cell cathodes Computer simulation Dependence Discrete element method Electrochemical analysis Electrochemical modeling Electrochemistry Fabrication Fuel cells Fuel technology Kinetic Monte Carlo Lattice Boltzmann method Mathematical models Microstructure Monte Carlo simulation Particle size distribution Performance degradation Pore size Porosity Powder Response surface method Response surface methodology Sintering (powder metallurgy) Size distribution Solid oxide fuel cells
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Summary:	[Display omitted] •Solid oxide fuel cell electrode microstructure is modeled from fabrication to operation.•1D lattice Boltzmann model is used for fast evaluation of electrode overpotential.•Time-evolutions of the microstructure parameters and overpotential are studied.•Correlations between microstructures and overpotentials are studied based on 13,860 distinct microstructures.•A response surface model is established for fast prediction of overpotential from microstructural parameters. In this study, a numerical framework which jointly uses discrete element method, kinetic Monte Carlo method and lattice Boltzmann method is proposed to predict the electrochemical performance of solid oxide fuel cell cathode from raw powder. A total of 770 La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3−δ (LSCF) cathodes with different microstructures are numerically synthesized using various particle size, size distribution, pore former content and sintering time. Best performance is found at a porosity of approximately 0.40. The cathode performance degrades tremendously at about a critical porosity of 0.10–0.25 because the pores become disconnected. The critical porosity is found to have a positive linear dependency on the mean pore size. Cathodes that have smaller mean pore size may still operate functionally at a low porosity of 0.10. A response surface model (RSM) is proposed to predict the overpotential from microstructural parameters. The RSM is also found to be valid for real cathode microstructures and can be served as an off-line assessment tool for the cathode performance.
ISSN:	0196-8904 1879-2227