TY - JOUR
T1 - Investigation of startup, performance and cycling of a residential furnace integrated with micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cells for micro-combined heat and power
AU - Milcarek, Ryan J.
AU - DeBiase, Vincent P.
AU - Ahn, Jeongmin
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported by an agreement with Syracuse University awarded by its Syracuse Center of Excellence for Environmental and Energy Systems with funding under prime award number DE-EE0006031 from the US Department of Energy and matching funding under award number 53367 from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), under NYSERDA contract 61736 and NEXUS-NY under contract 03911 . This material is also based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. 1746928 and the ASHRAE Graduate Grant-in-Aid. A related patent US10170780B2 was filed.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/4/1
Y1 - 2020/4/1
N2 - Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) offer advantages for micro-Combined Heat and Power (μCHP), but currently suffer from slow startup (>1 h) and limited thermal cycling which reduces the applications, energy savings and economics. In this work, a micro-Tubular SOFC stack is integrated into a residential furnace to create a micro-Tubular Flame-assisted Fuel Cell (mT-FFC) μCHP system. A high power density of 202 mW cm−2 is reported operating in synthesis gas generated from fuel-rich combustion of natural gas/air. Unlike previous reports, instabilities in the polarization are attributed to low temperature of the oxygen reduction reaction at the cathode. The mT-FFC stack achieved peak power density in 6 min after ignition. 200 thermal cycles at an average heating rate of 215 °C.min−1 and average cooling rate of 176 °C.min−1 were conducted and a low degradation rate of 0.0325 V per 100 cycles per fuel cell was achieved. Low NOx emissions (10 ppm) and high combined efficiency is reported.
AB - Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) offer advantages for micro-Combined Heat and Power (μCHP), but currently suffer from slow startup (>1 h) and limited thermal cycling which reduces the applications, energy savings and economics. In this work, a micro-Tubular SOFC stack is integrated into a residential furnace to create a micro-Tubular Flame-assisted Fuel Cell (mT-FFC) μCHP system. A high power density of 202 mW cm−2 is reported operating in synthesis gas generated from fuel-rich combustion of natural gas/air. Unlike previous reports, instabilities in the polarization are attributed to low temperature of the oxygen reduction reaction at the cathode. The mT-FFC stack achieved peak power density in 6 min after ignition. 200 thermal cycles at an average heating rate of 215 °C.min−1 and average cooling rate of 176 °C.min−1 were conducted and a low degradation rate of 0.0325 V per 100 cycles per fuel cell was achieved. Low NOx emissions (10 ppm) and high combined efficiency is reported.
KW - Flame-assisted fuel cell (FFC)
KW - Micro-combined heat and power (μCHP)
KW - Micro-tubular SOFCs (mT-SOFCs)
KW - Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC)
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U2 - 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117148
DO - 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117148
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85079655279
SN - 0360-5442
VL - 196
JO - Energy
JF - Energy
M1 - 117148
ER -