Modeling of Pressurized Electrochemistry and Steam-Methane Reforming In Solid Oxide Fuel Cells using Star-CD

Presented is an interesting and substantive paper in the development of effective CFD models. The paper presents a fully three-dimensional, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) study, using STAR-CD, to understand the effects of pressurization on electrochemical performance for planar solid oxide fuel cells. The CFD study considers two cases (1) a single-cell SOFC with methane as part of the fuel composition and (2) a sixteen-cell SOFC without methane in the fuel. Pressurized operation boosts electrochemical performance, alters the kinetics of methane reforming, and affects the equilibrium composition of methane fuels [1]. The authors of this paper illustrate this from these two cases.