Modeling of Temperature Effects on Carbon Deposition for Anode of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Using Natural Gas

Using hydrocarbon fuels, such as natural gas, directly in internal reforming applications is one of the advantages of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) over other fuel celltypes. These types of fuels, however, may cause problems for performance and durability of SOFCs as a result of carbon deposition. The current work is a study of carbon deposition, where a two dimensional unsteady model for reactive and support layers anode side has beendeveloped and the effects of temperature on carbon deposition were studied at 750, 800 and 850 °C. According to the temperature distributions that resulted from the simulations, theincrease in temperatures decreases the temperature gradient in the anode, but increases therate of methane cracking and Boudouard reactions, which in turn imposes greater carbon contect on the anode side

Keywords:

SOFCs , Natural Gas , Carbon Deposition , Modeling