Modeling of Liquid Tin Anode Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

    The Liquid Tin Anode Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (LTA-SOFC) is a unique technology that allows the direct oxidation of hydrocarbon and carbonaceous fuels. LTA-SOFC can convert directly JP-8 or other hydrocarbons to electric power without reformers or other fuel processing, thus enabling a more efficient and compact system design for a wide range of applications.

    A 1D mathematical model was developed to help understand the limiting processes in the LTA-SOFC system. The model can be used to simulate the mass transport phenomena taking place in the porous cathode, the YSZ electrolyte, the LTA anode and the porous separator regions. The Butler-Volmer equation was used to account for the kinetic polarization. A finite element based software package known as Multiphysics (formerly FEMLAB) by COMSOL was used for the numerical solution of the model equations. The simulated V-I curve agreed well with the experiment data, where pure hydrogen is used as the fuel. Future work includes extending the fuel to hydrocarbons and JP-8.    

    The simulations show that the kinetics of the tin oxidation with oxygen, the reduction of tin oxide with fuel molecules and the diffusion of tin oxide in liquid tin are important processes in the LTA-SOFC. However, the understanding of these processes is limited. The study on these processes is being performed cooperatively at USC and CellTech. The results of this work will be summarized in the presentation.

1.      Qi Zhang, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Associate, Chemical Engineering Department, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29205, zhang258@engr.sc.edu, 803-777-0350 (phone).

2.      Ralph E. White, Ph.D., Professor and Distinguished Scientist, Chemical Engineering Department, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, 29205, white@engr.sc.edu, 803-777-3270 (phone), 803-777-8265 (fax).

3.      Thomas Tao, Ph.D., founder/CTO, CellTech Power, LLC, 131 Flanders road, Westboro, MA 01581, tao@celltechpower.com, 508-898-2223 ext 12, 508-898-2690 (fax)

4.      Jeff Bentley, CEO, CellTech Power, LLC, 131 Flanders road, Westboro, MA 01581, jbentley@celltechpower.com, 508-898-2223 ext 34, 508-898-2690 (fax)