Abstract
The combustion of methane produces favorable conditions for power generation via solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). When SOFCs operate in the exhaust of a combustion reaction in a flame-assisted fuel cell (FFC) arrangement, electrical power and heat can be simultaneously produced. These combined heat and power (CHP) systems offer high efficiencies and resilience against external power supply disruptions. The geometric limitations of SOFCs, however, have previously complicated their integration into combustion chambers. Specifically, the desirable self-sealing tubular-SOFC (tSOFC) geometry which offers resilience against rapid thermal fluctuations, a necessity for operation within combustion chambers, requires the fuel to be fed to the inside of the tube when produced through traditional manufacturing procedures. This requirement significantly alters the combustion chamber operation. This issue has been eliminated through development of a novel extrusion-based internal cathode tSOFC (IC-tSOFC) which has oxidant fed internally allowing it to be directly placed into the fuel containing environment of a combustion chamber. At this point, the performance of these cells has only been investigated when utilizing hydrogen as a fuel. This work investigates IC-tSOFC operation with model methane combustion exhaust acting as the fuel supply. Variation of performance as a result of operation temperature as well as exhaust compositions are presented in addition to scanning electron microscope images of the cells before and after short-term durability testing. The results shown here provide motivation to continue work on integrating IC-tSOFCs into combustion systems to produce high efficiency CHP solutions.
