Heat and Mass Transfer in a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell : 2nd Report, Analysis Investigation of Performance and Temperature Distribution in a Cell Stack

Abstract

A large-scale stack model of a molten carbonate fuel cell was developed for evaluating the variation of cell performance and temperature in the cell stacking direction. A numerical method for the solution of the performance and the three-dimensional temperature distribution in a stack was proposed and examined. For the temperature distribution, calculated results, taking the heat transfer at the end plate surface into account, have been compared with the measured temperature distribution of the cell stack, and the comparison showed good accordance. For several stacks which were composed of 12 cells with different gas flow configurations, the total stack performance and the temperature distribution were investigated analytically. As a result, it was shown that the temperature distribution of a cell becomes more uniform by the effect of heat exchange in the stacking direction.