Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) is a technology that potentially allows to increase the efficiency of electricity production. Furthermore it has the advantage that even small units can be operated at high efficiency, which allows a decentralized power supply and thereby an increased utilization of local energy sources.
Internal steam reforming in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells can further increase the system efficiency. This is because the waste heat from the electro¬chemical reactions supplies energy for the highly endothermic steam reforming reaction.
Catalyzed steam reforming at SOFC relevant temperatures is very rapid and therefore causes large temperature gradients in the stack. This is the major limitation to the application of internal steam reforming.
To achieve an optimal design and operation of an SOFC fueled by natural gas kinetic expressions are required which are able to accurately describe the steam reforming rate. There are significant differences in the reported kinetic expressions over the anode material Ni-YSZ. The primary goal of this project is to determine both the intrinsic kinetics and the kinetics in an SOFC anode structure.