On direct internal methane steam reforming kinetics in operating solid oxide fuel cells with nickel-ceria anodes

Major operating challenges remain to safely operate methane fuelled solid oxide fuel cells due to undesirable temperature gradients across the porous anode and carbon deposition. This article presents an experimental study on methane steam reforming (MSR) global kinetics for single operating SOFCs with Ni-GDC (gadolinium doped ceria) anodes for low steam to carbon (S/C) ratios and moderate current densities. The study points out the hitherto insufficient research on MSR global and intrinsic kinetics for operating SOFCs with complete Ni-ceria anodes. Further, it emphasizes the need to develop readily applicable global kinetic models as a subsequent step from previously reported state-of-art and complex intrinsic models. Two rate expressions of the Power law (PL) and Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) type have been compared and based on the analysis, limitations of using previously proposed rate expressions for Ni catalytic beds to study MSR kinetics for complete cermet anodes have been identified. Firstly, it has been shown that methane reforming on metallic (Ni) current collectors may not be always negligible, contrary to literature reports. Both PL and LH kinetic models predict significantly different local MSR reaction rate and species partial pressure distributions along the normalized reactor length, indicating a strong need for further experimental verifications.