Performance and Microstructure Analysis of Single Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

In this paper, performance and microstructural properties of single Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) have been investigated by using experimental tests, Scanning Electronic Microscopic (SEM) and a performance modeling. These single-SOFCs were fabricated by tape casting and screen printing as economical mass-production processes which have been presented. Also, overpotential polarizations, such as: ohmic, activation, and concentration polarizations, are determined by an electrochemical model and microstructure characteristics for each layer. On the basis of the modeling results, anode, cathode activation and ohmic polarizations have the most effects to cause loss power density of the single cells. Thus, microstructural and geometric properties play main role in performance of the single-SOFCs. Because of large grain and pore sizes of the anode layer compared with the cathode layer cause more activation polarization than that of the cathode layer. Performance analysis can be used as a powerful tool to improve and optimize fabrication characteristics and processing of the single cell of the SOFC which are made by tape casting and screen printing techniques by using an electrochemical model in the future studies