Thermal management of the molten carbonate fuel cell plane

The operating temperature range of molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) is about 925–955 K. An input gas temperature of at least 855 K is necessary to guarantee good ionic conduction inside the cells. Maximum local temperatures higher than 960 K should be avoided because they can cause problems such as electrolyte loss and corrosion.The first limit can easily be managed, while the second can only be managed through taking many local measurements or, more properly, reliable detailed simulation models.Using a specific code developed by the authors, the temperature distribution on the cell plane can be calculated with an error of the same order of magnitude as the experimental one.The study of different MCFC operating conditions carried out using our simulation tool highlighted the difficulties in respecting the constraint on the maximum local temperature.The temperature maps of an MCFC plane can be very irregular and some parts of the cell can work under critical conditions even if the average temperature is not too high and this aspect is critical for industrial optimisation of MCFC performance.Different techniques have been tried to obtain a uniform temperature distribution on the cell plane. In particular, having observed that fluid-dynamics plays a predominant role in the problem, a solution based on the use of non-uniform inlet gas-flows has been proposed. The encouraging results obtained will be shown and discussed in detail.