Experimental investigation on the effect of anode functional layer on the performance of anode supported micro-tubular SOFCs

• Published in: International journal of hydrogen energy Vol. 47; no. 45; pp. 19741 - 19751
• Main Authors: Timurkutluk, Cigdem, Bilgil, Keremhan, Celen, Ali, Onbilgin, Sezer, Altan, Tolga, Aydin, Ugur
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 26.05.2022
• Subjects: Anode functional layer; Micro-tubular; Powder size; Sintering temperature; Solid oxide fuel cell; Thickness; Thickness; Anode functional layer; Micro-tubular; Powder size; Sintering temperature; Solid oxide fuel cell
• ISSN: 0360-3199; 1879-3487
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.09.260

In this study, anode supported micro-tubular solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are fabricated by extrusion method and the effects of powder size, thickness and sintering temperature of the anode functional layer (AFL) on the electrochemical performance is experimentally investigated. For this purpose, four different commercial NiO powders are tested as initial powder for the fabrication of the anode functional layer. The thickness of AFL is also considered by varying the number of coatings. After deciding the optimum initial NiO powder size used in AFL and AFL thickness, the effect of pre-sintering temperature is examined. The performance tests are performed at an operating temperature of 800 °C under hydrogen and air. The microstructures of the samples are also investigated by a scanning electron microscope. The best peak power density is obtained as ∼0.5 W/cm2 from the cell having a single layer anode functional layer pre-sintered at 1250 °C prepared by NiO powders with 4 m2/g surface area. •Effects of anode functional layer (AFL) for microtubular SOFCs are investigated.•Initial powder size, thickness and pre-sintering temperature for AFL are also studied.•AFL prepared with the finest initial NiO powders shows the best performance.•The cell performance decreases with increasing the number of AFL dip coatings.•AFL pre-sintering temperature is optimized as 1250 °C for a high cell performance.