Nickel agglomeration in solid oxide fuel cells: The influence of temperature

► The submitted paper points out the temperature dependency of the Ni-agglomeration in SOFCs. Therefore, Ni/CGO anode microstructures reduced at different temperatures were quantitatively analyzed using a sophisticated approach for the continuous particle size distribution. ► Most of the microstructural changes occur above a reduction temperature of 850 °C which can therefore be considered as a critical temperature for SOFCs. ► The Ni-agglomeration as a function of the reduction temperature was described with an Arrhenius type equation, by which the experimental results could be fitted very well. ► The study will be one important part of a degradation model on Ni-cermet anodes that is currently under development. ► To our knowledge this is the first study on Ni-cermet SOFCs that proposes an Arrhenius equation based on real experimental results.