Experimental and analytical investigation of molten carbonate fuel cell stack

A high temperature molten carbonate fuel fell (MCFC) stack has been studied experimentally and computationally. A kW scale MCFC stack test station was designed and installed, and experimental investigations of the stack performance were conducted. A three-dimensional, variational parameter numerical model was developed and used to simulate the central fuel cell in the stack. Heat generation, mass transfer between anode and cathode and electrochemical characteristics of the fuel cell were considered in developing the model. The distributions of temperature on the cathode/current collector interface, current density, power density, water vapor concentration in the anode flow channel and and velocity for the fuel cell were simulated by solving the model using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. Simulation results show that the temperature, current and power densities reach their maximal values at the channel outlet. The comparison of the modeling results and experimental data shows good agreement.