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http://dx.doi.org/10.5229/JKES.2005.8.4.155

Numerical Analysis of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell Stack Using Computational Fluid Dynamics  

Lee, Kab-Soo (Department of Environmental system Engineering, Kimpo College)
Cho, Hyun-Ho (School of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Seoul National University)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society / v.8, no.4, 2005 , pp. 155-161 More about this Journal
Abstract
In this paper, commercial CFD program FLUENT v5.3 is used for simulation of MCFC stack. Besides using conservation equations included in FLUENT by default, mass change, mole fraction change and heat added or removed due to electrochemical reactions and water gas shift reaction are considered by adding several equations using user defined function. The stacks calculated are 6 and 25 kW class coflow stack which are composed of 20 and 40 unit cells respectively. Simulation results showed that pressure drop took place in the direction of gas flow, and the pressure drop of cathode side is more larger than that of anode side. And the velocity of cathode gas decreased along with the gas flow direction, but the velocity of anode gas increased because of the mass and volume changes by the chemical reactions in each electrodes. Simulated temperature profile of the stack tended to increase along with the gas flow direction and it showed similar results with the experimental data. Water gas shift reaction was endothermic at the gas inlet side but it was exothermic at the outlet side of electrode respectively. Therefore water gas shift reaction played a role in increasing temperature difference between inlet and outlet side of stack. This results suggests that the simulation of large scale commercial stacks need to consider water gas shift reaction.
Keywords
Molten carbonate fuel cell; Stack; Computational fluid dynamics; Numerical analysis;
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