Surface-to-Surface Radiation

Exchange Effects in a 3D SOFC

Gianfranco DiGiuseppe
Kettering University,
1700 University Avenue,
Flint, MI 48504-4898
e-mail: gdigiuse@kettering.edu
Stack Unit Cell
This paper reports a new study where radiation effects are studied in details in an SOFC
stack. The 3D model used includes and couples fluid dynamics, electrochemistry, electri-
cal conduction, diffusion, and heat transfer physics. The model was built using in-house
experimental voltage-current density data for validation purposes. The objective of this
study is to understand the effects of radiation in the flow channels of SOFC stacks. Both
gas radiation and surface-to-surface heat exchange are considered. This study indicates
that gas radiation is negligible when compared to surface-to-surface heat exchange. It is
also found that surface-to-surface heat exchange cannot be neglected and actually
provides a more uniform temperature distribution along the SOFC stack. Heat transfer
via convection is also significant and should be included when modeling similar situa-
tions. Finally, the model indicates that viscous dissipation is a negligible source of heat
generation. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4007816]

Introduction 1
O2 2e ! O2
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are electrochemical devices 2
that can generate electrical power efficiently and discard high qual- while in the anode side we have
ity waste heat for cogeneration applications [1]. SOFC systems are
envisioned to play a role in all aspects of energy applications rang- H2 O2 ! H2 O 2e
ing from portable, residential, and all the way up to large power
plants [2]. The thermal management of SOFC systems is of vital and the overall reaction is given by:
importance to ensure long term reliability. A good thermal model
1
needs to be coupled with the various physics occurring in SOFC H2 O 2 ) H 2 O
stacks and should include all modes of heat transfer and the major 2
sources of heat generation. For instance, most modeling papers
neglect completely the effects of radiation exchange among surfa- The reactants used are 97% hydrogen (rest water) in the anode
ces [35]. Other papers do not add thermal effects at all and assume side and dry air is used in the cathode side. The inlet velocities are
constant surface reactant concentrations [6,7]. Radiation heat estimated for flow rates corresponding to about 70% fuel utiliza-
exchange can occur among surfaces and may lower the actual tem- tion and 25% air utilization. The details of the electrochemical
perature. In other words, neglecting radiation effects will overesti- model have been reported elsewhere [10] where fluid dynamics,
mate temperatures and most importantly temperature gradients. electrochemistry, electrical conduction, and diffusion physics
Some early work with radiation has been performed for a mono- have been used and coupled.
lithic unit cell [8]; however, the electrochemical model was not pre-
sented at all. In another early work, the radiation exchange between Thermal Model. In this model, the energy equation is coupled
two surfaces was greatly simplified [9]. In this work, we will study with the physics used in Ref. [10]. The conservation of energy for
the radiation effects on the axial temperature profiles in more the gas channels can be written as follows [11]:
details to determine if radiation should be included in modeling of
SOFC stacks or can be neglected. @T
qcp r  krT s : rV  qcp V  rT Se (1)
@t
Model Description
Unit Cell. Fig. 1 illustrates a repeating unit in a stack. In this
study, a unit cell is taken and the external walls are considered to
be adiabatic. These boundary conditions are realistic for an inner
unit cell that is in the middle of the stack. However, they are not
appropriate for an outer unit cell where heat exchange with the
stack surrounding has to be included. The inlet temperatures are
assumed to be 750  C while at the outlet convective boundary
conditions are applied. The dimension labels of the unit cell used
in this work are shown in Fig. 2 while their values can be found in
Table 1. For this model, the electrochemical reaction in the cath-
ode side is considered to be:

Contributed by the Advanced Energy Systems Division of ASME for publication

in the JOURNAL OF FUEL CELL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. Manuscript received August
23, 2012; final manuscript received September 19, 2012; published online November Fig. 1 Repeating SOFC unit in a stack and unit cell chosen for
16, 2012. Editor: Nigel M. Sammes. this study

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 Fig. 2 Dimension labels for the unit cell and mesh used in this work. The mesh
number of axial element was varied until the solution had become independent.

Table 1 Unit cell dimensions used in this model In this model, it is assumed that the heat of the reaction is released
in the reactive Three Phase Boundary of the anode where water is
Parameter Symbol Value Reference produced. The other energy source is due to ohmic heating which
can be written in general terms as [14]:
Channel width Wch 2 mm [12]
Channel height Hch 2 mm [12]
Interconnect height Hint 3 mm [12] Qohm I 2 Rel (5)
Rib width Wrib 0.5 mm [12]
Unit cell width W 3 mm [12]
Unit cell length L 100 mm NA and represents heat generation due to electrical conduction.
Anode thickness 510 lm [10]
Electrolyte thickness 10 lm [10]
Doped ceria thickness 4 lm [10] Radiation. Radiation is mostly a surface phenomenon, and
Cathode thickness 30 lm [10] usually it is assumed that gases are not participating in radiation
heat transfer. Surface to surface heat exchange via radiation is
however significant. For a blackbody, the net radiation heat
transfer from surface i due to exchange with all surfaces (N) of an
where the last term represents any energy sources in the gas chan- enclosure is given by [14]:
nel. In general, viscous dissipation can be neglected in the gas
channels and no heat sources are considered since no reactions X
N  
occur here. Also, steady state conditions apply and the time deriv- qi Ai Fij b Ti4  Tj4 (6)
ative becomes zero. For porous electrodes, we can neglect viscous j1
dissipation and convective effects, and we can use an effective
thermal conductivity. The conservation of energy can then be
written as [11]: The above equation includes all possible radiating surfaces. For
real surfaces, the actual emissivity for each surface is needed since
for a blackbody the emissivity is equal to one. In order to verify
@T that radiation from gases is negligible, one may estimate their
qcp r  keff rT Se (2)
@t contribution from the following expression [14]:

 
where the effective thermal conductivity is given by [12]:
qnet As b eg Tg4  ag Ts4 (7)
keff /kg 1  /ks (3)
Here the gas emissivity, eg , and the gas aborptivity, ag , can be
For the other solid domains, the effective thermal conductivity estimated using Ref. [14]. The heat exchange between two
is simply the solid thermal conductivity. For this setup, energy surfaces can be estimated form the relationship:
sources are not present in the gas channels; however, in the porous
electrodes we need to consider the energy release due to the elec-  
trochemical reaction of hydrogen with oxygen. The enthalpy of b T14  T24
the reaction that produces water is a source of heat and can be q12 (8)
1  e1 1 1  e2
estimated using the JANAF tables and is given by the following
e1 F12 e2
expression [13]:

Assuming a view factor of one and a temperature difference of

Dh 240; 393  7:04T (4) 50 K, the contribution from gases to the total heat transfer is less

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 Table 2 Thermal conductivity, heat capacity, density, and
emissivity values used in this model

Parameter Symbol Value Reference

Anode kan 11 W/m K [12]

Electrolyte kel 6 W/m K [12]
Cathode kca 2.7 W/m K [12]
Interconnect kint 26.9 W/m K [14]
Air @1100 K kair 71.5  103 W/m K [14]
Hydrogen @1100 K kH2 488  103 W/m K [14]
Anode Cp,an 400 J/kg K [16]
Electrolyte Cp,el 550 J/kg K [16]
Cathode Cp,ca 300 J/kg K [16]
Interconnect Cp,in 969 J/kg K [14]
Air @1100 K Cp,air 1.159  103 J/kg K [14]
Hydrogen @1100 K Cp,H2 15.17  103 J/kg K [14]
Anode qan 6950 kg/m3 [16]
Electrolyte qel 5900 kg/m3 [16]
Cathode qca 6360 kg/m3 [17]
Interconnect qint 7822 kg/m3 [14]
Anode @1000 K eAlumina 0.55 [14]
Cathode @1000 K eAlumina 0.55 [14]
Interconnect @1000 K eint 0.3 [14]
Nickel (polished) @1000 K eNi;pol 0.14 [14]
Nickel (oxidized) @1000 K eNi;ox 0.57 [14] Fig. 4 Sample of a typical temperature distribution along the
unit cell

than 5%. Hence, gas radiation can be neglected and surface-to-
surface heat exchange is the only radiation exchange that should
be included in the model. The same conclusion has been reached
by other workers by estimating the gas transmittance in flow chan-
nels [15].
750  C. Emissivity values for the anode and cathode are not read-
ily available and different values were used in a sensitivity study.
For all runs, the cathode and anode emissivity was assumed to be
same as found for alumina or otherwise specified. The ionic con-
ductivity for YSZ is taken to be [5]:

Unit Cell Properties. The new parameters used in this study  

3:6  105 8:0  104
are reported in Table 2. All other parameters have already been rel exp  (9)
published in a previous paper [10]. The inlet velocities are esti- T RT
mated for flow rates corresponding to about 70% fuel utilization
and 25% air utilization. Both inlet flow temperatures are set at while the ionic conductivity for doped ceria is given by [18]:

Fig. 3 Model validation using isothermal experimental voltage-current density data and unit
cell voltage-current density curve for a length of 0.1 ms for nonisothermal conditions

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 Fig. 5 Sample of typical velocity distribution and velocity vectors along the unit cell

 
5:08  104 0:66 kint V2
rceria exp  22  109 2 (12)
T kT rint T K

The anode and cathode electrical conductivities are taken from where kint is reported in Table 2. The effective diffusion coeffi-
Ref. [5] and are the following: cients are estimated as outlined in reference 10 however as a func-
  tion temperature.
9:5  105 9561:1
ran exp  (10)
T RT Solution Method. The system of equations were solved using
the finite element commercial software COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS. For
  each run, a given cell voltage was imposed and the outputs were
4:2  105 9976:8
rca exp  (11) velocity, current density, species distribution, and temperature. To
T RT
generate a complete voltage-current density, several runs were
performed at different cell voltages in a parametric mode. Typi-
The electrical conductivity of the interconnect is assumed to be cally, the imposed cell voltage ranged from 1.0 V down to 0.3 V
temperature independent and is estimated using the following in steps of 0.05 V for voltage-current density curves. For the tem-
relationship [11]: perature profiles the imposed cell voltage ranged from 1.0 V down

Fig. 6 Temperature profiles without radiation at the an/el interface along the unit
cell at different voltages

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 Fig. 7 Temperature profiles with radiation at the an/el interface along the unit cell
at different voltages

Fig. 8 Temperature profiles along the unit cell at different locations at 0.6 Vs

to 0.6 V in steps of 0.05 V. A mesh study was conducted and a
final mesh was determined once the solution had become inde-
pendent of mesh size. The face mesh used is shown in Fig. 2, and
the number of axial elements was varied until the solution had
become independent of number of elements.
Results and Discussion
Model Validation. For the model validation, a button cell
voltage-current density curve measured in house under our stand-
ard testing conditions was used. The voltage-current density curve
obtained from a 2D model is plotted together with the experimen-
tal data and is shown in Fig. 3. The detail of the 2D model and
additional results can be found in Ref. [10]. The same model is
then converted into a 3D model where heat transfer is coupled
with all other physics. For starters, a nonisothermal voltage cur-
rent density (VJ) curve was first obtained and plotted in Fig. 3. As
expected, the unit cell VJ is lower than the 2D curve because the
reactants are being depleted as they flow through the gas channels.
This occurs because the unit cell operates at a given fuel utiliza-
tion of about 70% fuel utilization and 25% air utilization
while the 2D model operates at about zero fuel and air utilization.
Figure 4 shows a typical temperature distribution along the unit
cell and shows that temperature rises along the unit cell. This is
due to heat generation from ohmic heating and from the heat of
the reaction along the cell as expected. Figure 5 shows typical
velocity distribution and velocity vectors along the unit cell. Here,

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 Fig. 9 Percent error in temperature at the an/el interface along the unit cell at
0.6 Vs

Fig. 10 Temperature profiles with radiation eanode;cathode 5 0:01 (an/el interface)

along the unit cell at different voltages

we notice lower velocities in the fuel side which in turns means
larger convective effects in the cathode side. The higher cathode
velocities are due to higher flow rates given the low air utilization.
Also, it is common in SOFC systems to use air as a mean of cool-
ing the stack. Reactant concentrations (not shown) are also typical
of an SOFC operating at a given reactant utilizations. In order to
understand the effect of surface radiation, though, we need to look
at temperature profiles along exposed surfaces.
Figure 6 illustrates the temperature profiles at the anode/electro-
lyte interface (middle of the unit cell) as a function of the axial
length and at different cell voltages. In this case, radiation among
surfaces has not been included. In general, the temperature
increases from the inlet condition of 750  C because of ohmic
heating and the heat released by the chemical reaction. This plot
indicates that the temperature is higher as the voltage decreases.
This is due to increased current drawn from the unit cell as the
voltage decreases. Also worth noting is that the temperature keeps
increasing in all cases and curves show no maximum. This is due
to convective effects where heat is transported toward the unit cell
outlet. In Fig. 7, the modeling results including radiation among
surfaces are plotted. In general, the temperature increase from
inlet to outlet expect for the higher voltages (lower current). The
temperature profiles, however, are lower than the previous plot
and maxima are also observed near the outlet. This occurs because
heat is transferred a bit quicker when radiation is included than is
transported downstream via convection alone. In addition, the

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 Fig. 11 Temperature profiles with radiation eanode;cathode 0:1 (an/el interface)
along the unit cell at different voltages

Fig. 12 Temperature profiles with viscous dissipation at the an/el interface along
the unit cell at different voltages

temperatures are lower than the previous data. It is well know that
radiation lowers the temperature of a solid and neglecting its
effects overestimates temperatures [14]. In order to better under-
stand these effects, the temperature profiles at 0.6 V are plotted in
Fig. 8 at a different location within the unit cell with and without
radiation. Along the cross-section of the unit cell, the temperature
profiles are very close to each other. This indicates a negligible
temperature gradient along this direction and confirms what other
researchers have already found; that is, the temperature gradients
are significant along the axial length only for coflow arrange-
ments. The same behavior is observed with and without radiation
with the exception at the inlet. For the case without radiation, the
inlet curves show a steeper slope because of increased heat near
the inlet and changes slope near 0.01 m. In the radiation case, this
is not observed because of a more effective heat exchange.
Finally, in order to quantify the error in temperature between the
two models, Fig. 9 plots the temperature percent error as a func-
tion of the axial length along the anode/electrolyte interface. It
seen that the temperature error is larger at the outlet where the
gases leave.

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 Fig. 13 Temperature profiles without convection/viscous dissipation at the an/el
interface along the unit cell at different voltages

To understand the role of the surface emissivity on the tempera- T temperature (K)
ture profiles, two separate runs were conducted assuming an emis- Se energy source
sivity value 0.01 and 0.1 for both the anode and cathode surfaces. V velocity vector
From Fig. 10, it is observed that even a small value for emissivity
(0.01) still lowers the temperature significantly. Increasing the
emissivity to 0.1 (Fig. 11) causes little change, indicating that
Greek Letters
radiation heat exchange is still effective at these temperatures a aborptivity
even for low emissivity values. In addition, the effect of viscous b StefanBoltzmann constant (W m2 K4)
dissipation is investigated and is reported in Fig. 12; however, a e emissivity
small change in temperature is noticeable the change is small and q density (kg m3)
can be neglected. In general, viscous dissipation is neglected in r conductivity (S m1)
heat transfer applications [14]. Finally, for completeness, the s stress tensor
effects of convection on the cell temperature are also studied. Fig- / porosity
ure 13 report this study where convection has been neglected from
the model but radiation is included. Here, it is noticeable that con- Subscripts
vection is also an important mode of heat transfer and neglecting
it overestimates the cell temperature as well. an anode
ca cathode
el electrolyte
Conclusion i surface i
In this work, a new 3D model has been developed to aide in the in interlayer
design of SOFC stacks. This model takes into account all modes int interconnect
of heat transfer. It is found that surface-to-surface heat exchange j surface j
cannot be neglected and actually provides a more uniform temper- eff effective
ature distribution along the SOFC stack. Heat transfer via convec-
tion is also significant and should be included when modeling References
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