Significance of advanced porous configurations in enhancing solid oxide fuel cell performance: a comparative analysis between conventional porous anodes and state-of-the-art variants

Three different configurations of the porous anode of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) have been computationally synthesized and analyzed with respect to their electrochemical performance and topological properties. In addition to the conventional Ni/YSZ configuration of SOFC, which is usually fabricated using screen-printing, two novel designs (fibrous and lattice microstructures) are synthesized and tested. For each class of configurations, a numerical framework has been developed that can generate microstructures with specified topological characteristics. Finite volume method is employed to investigate transport phenomena and electrochemical reactions occurring within the active layer of porous anode cermet. Utilization of synthetically generated microstructures enables the direct study of certain microstructural and image acquisition attributes that may be inherently fixed within the confines and limits of a destructive 3D imaging. For instance, results showed how the choice of voxel size can greatly alter the measured Triple Phase Boundary (TPB) and the electrochemical performance. The investigation further demonstrated that lattice and fibrous structures produce an increased current density of 4.8 and 1.4 times, respectively, compared to the established conventional configuration. Finally, gradient microstructures have demonstrated the capacity to enhance electrochemical performance when subjected to careful fabrication methodologies.