Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the effects of fuel supply conditions on the power generation characteristics of a small tubular solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), In the experiments, the furnace inside temperature is fixed at 800℃, and the hydrogen/nitrogen mixture (10%/90%) is fed into the single cell as the fuel with the different flow rate conditions. The results show that the flow rate affects the current-voltage characteristics, that is, the net voltage becomes higher with increasing the fuel flow rate. The data of the fuel utilization and the power generation efficiency at the operating points, which give the maximum power output individually, are estimated. Under the operation with 10% hydrogen, the power generation efficiency reaches to 9.0% with the fuel flow rate of 20mL/min. But lower fuel flow rate condition, the fuel utilization and efficiency greatly decrease simultaneously. In addition, by using current interruption method, the detail of the voltage drop is estimated. It is found that the fuel flow rate does not quite affect the ohmic loss.
