Investigations on charcoal as fuel for a refillable scandia-stabilised zirconia electrolyte-based tubular carbon fuel ce
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Investigations on charcoal as fuel for a refillable scandia-stabilised zirconia electrolyte-based tubular carbon fuel cell Daniel Fini 1,2 & Aniruddha P. Kulkarni 1 & Sarbjit Giddey 1 & Sankar Bhattacharya 2 Received: 21 February 2020 / Revised: 18 May 2020 / Accepted: 14 June 2020 # Crown 2020
Abstract A carbon fuel cell (CFC) is an emerging technology for conversion of solid carbonaceous material into electricity at high theoretical efficiencies (100 %). As carbonaceous material like coal will remain an important energy source for the next few decades, the development of technology that can use it more efficiently is critical to reduce emissions. For practical operation of a CFC, a continual supply or consecutive refuelling of solid carbon fuel is required. Here, we investigated the electrochemical performance and durability of a CFC using a scandia-zirconia tubular electrolyte with Ce0.9Gd0.1O2–Ag electrodes with activated charcoal fuel. We demonstrated that CFCs can be operated in a batch-type process with refuelling and utilisation of fuel. Peak power densities up to 280 mW cm−2 were obtained without major materials degradation. We expect that advances to engineering of fuel delivery will improve the long-term stability and performance of the cells. Keywords SOFC . Charcoal . Fuel electrode . Tubular cell . Cell refuelling . Power generation
Introduction Carbon fuel cells (CFCs) are one of the most efficient devices for converting solid carbon or carbonaceous fuel into electrical energy. The theoretical efficiency of CFCs is close to 100%, but for practical system operation, efficiencies are expected to be close to 70% [1, 2]. As higher efficiencies reduce CO2 emissions, the technology is of interest considering that coal is poised to remain one of the world’s main energy sources, at least over the next few decades [2, 3]. The exhaust stream from an optimised CFC is expected to have high concentrations of CO2 and can be easily sequestered and captured compared with a diluted CO 2 stream from traditional coal-fired power plants [4, 5]. Despite the technical advantages of CFCs, several technical challenges remain to be addressed,
* Daniel Fini [email protected] 1
CSIRO Energy, Private Bag 10, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia
2
Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
including fuel delivery to the active sites at the fuel electrode/electrolyte interface and continuous supply of solid carbon to the anode chamber. The exact mechanism of carbon oxidation in CFCs is still not clear. It has been suggested that under certain conditions, it could be a combination of both oxidation of solid carbon at the anode surface and of gaseous CO generated by the reverse Boudouard reaction in the anode chamber [6, 7]. This is especially true when mixed ionic electronic conductors, such as ceria-based materials or doped ferrites, are used as an anode [8–10]. Most CFC studies are currently based on a batch-type process, where carbon fuel is placed in the anode chamber
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