Ideal SOFC - Back to fundamentals to find areas for improvement

Semester project

Spring 2024

Context

Today’s energy supply still relies heavily on fossil fuels, releasing large quantities of greenhouse gases and causing dammage to ecosystems and environement. The scientific community is currently exploring viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Among them, solar and wind energy are promising resource for a decarbonized electricity production. However, their intermittency and volatility has to be balanced implementing other technologies, also known as power-to-X-to-power devices. The X here stands for any molecule that can be stored efficiently and re-used for power generation.

In this context Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) has attracted a great deal of scientific attention in recent years, as a promising power supply technology. Moreover it can increase energy independance of the countries, making use of local biomnass and converting it into useful energy. It is a modern conversion technology that can generate electricity from a wide spectrum of liquid or gaseous fuels through electro-chemical reactions. SOFCs are know to be very efficient (>60 % electrical efficiency) and can easily be adapted to different industrial power plant scales. In addition, the SOFC operates at high temperatures (>600 ◦C), and cogenerates high-quality heat or steam, that can be used as a heat source in the system.

Nowadays, ongoing research aims at finding real-life applications for these technologies in energy systems, optimizing economics, energy efficiency and heat management. In this context, a return to a more fundamental understanding of fuel cells can provide some very interesting insights into heat flows and the various losses in the system. Starting from the “ideal” fuel cell and understanding step by step the non-idealities and their impact on the whole system should open up prospects for improving overall integration. What’s more, such modelling would enable a pragmatic comparison between the vast array of fuels that can be oxidized, ranging from biomethane to methanol, ammonia or even formic acid.

The Tasks

The project consists of the following main steps:

  • Understanding the basics of the “ideal” fuel cells (thermodynamic aspects, heat flows, …)
  • Modelling a generic system in Aspen Plus to simulate ideal performance based on CH4
  • Considering one-by-one the non-idealities and getting their physical meaning
  • Generalizing the procedure to other fuels and find place of improvements in the management of heat

Skills

• Interest in understanding fundamentals of fuel cells • Basic knowledge in thermodynamics and electrochemistry • ASPEN modelling skill

  • Lectures:
    • Energy Conversion and/or Renewable Energy
    • Advanced energetics
    • Thermodynamics Lectures

Practical information

The project will be conducted in IPESE lab in Sion (EPFL Valais) at about 1h05 from Lausanne train station. Possibility of meeting on the campus in Lausanne (Mondays) once the project is up and running. Any transportation fees between Lausanne and Sion will be reimbursed by the lab.

Supervisor

The project will be supervised by Arthur Waeber and co-supervised by Xinyi Wei. If interested, please send your CV, with a short motivation letter, to Arthur. Arthur Waeber, mailto: arthur.waeber@epfl.ch;