Performance of solid-oxide fuel cells fed with pure hydrogen and methanol steam reforming products – experimental study

A solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) can be fed by fuels other than pure hydrogen, making it suitable for methanol-based economy power cycles. In the reported article, we carried out for the first-time experiments on different types of SOFCs fueled with methanol steam reforming (MSR) products to evaluate and compare the SOFC performance with pure hydrogen. Through this novel comparison, the study provides new insights into the potential of using methanol as a fuel source for SOFCs. Experimental investigation was conducted to evaluate a button SOFC performance operating with MSR products and pure hydrogen under 700, 750, 800, and 850 °C. Two types of SOFC were tested: 1) NiO-YSZ anode-supported cell and 2) the Next-Cell-HP Hionic™ electrolyte-supported cell. The results indicate that the fuel cell fed with MSR products exhibits slight reduction (less than 5%) in power density compared to pure hydrogen. The results were compared with the theoretical values using zero-dimensional simulations. It was found that the change in effective diffusivity causes the main disparity in the SOFC performance when fed with MSR products and hydrogen. Based on the obtained results, we suggest that the SOFC has the potential to be successfully integrated into methanol-based power generating cycles with thermochemical recovery of a waste heat.