Ideal SOFC: Back to fundamentals to find areas for improvement

Semester/Master project

Spring 2025

Context

Today’s energy supply depends heavily on fossil fuels, releasing greenhouse gases and damaging ecosystems. The scientific community is exploring alternatives like solar and wind energy, which are promising for decarbonized electricity production but require balancing intermittency with technologies such as power-to-X-to-power devices, where X represents storable molecules for power generation.

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) have gained attention as a highly efficient (>60%) energy conversion technology capable of generating electricity from various liquid or gaseous fuels via electrochemical reactions. SOFCs can operate on local biomass, enhancing energy independence, and their high operating temperatures (>600°C) allow for cogeneration of high quality heat or steam for additional uses, making them adaptable to industrial scales.

Research now focuses on optimizing the economics, energy efficiency, heat management and propose pragmatic designs for scaling-up of these systems. A fundamental understanding of fuel cells, examining each non-ideality and its impact can help propose a modular design and compare different fuels like Hydrogen, Biomethane, Methanol or Ammonia.

The Tasks

The project consists of the following main steps:

  • Understanding the basics of the “ideal” SOFC system (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, impact.
  • Generalizing the procedure to other fuels and find place of improvements in the management of heat and flows.
  • Possibly generalize the approach and methodology to SOEC (Electrolyzer) and eventually reversible systems (rSOC).

Skills

• Good knowledge in thermodynamics and electrochemistry • ASPEN modelling skill

  • Lectures:
    • Energy Conversion and Renewable Energy
    • Advanced energetics or Process Development
    • Basic Thermodynamics Lectures

Practical information

The project will be conducted in IPESE/GEM 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. English is required for the end report, but the supervision can be carried out in french, english or german.

Supervisor

The project will be supervised by Arthur Waeber. If interested, please contact me via e-mail attaching your CV and a short motivation letter.

Arthur Waeber, Xinyi Wei, mailto: arthur.waeber@epfl.ch;