Multiscale Modeling of Internal Reforming in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: A Study of Electrode Morphology and Gradient Microstructures

This work presents a comprehensive multiscale model for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs), integrating microscale and macroscale simulations to analyze internal reforming and its impact on overall cell performance. The microscale model [1], [2] captures the intricate mass and charge transport phenomena at the pore scale of porous electrodes, resolving electrochemical reactions at the triple-phase boundaries and modeling chemical reactions at pore spaces. Simultaneously, the macroscale model provides a broader view of the entire cell's behavior by solving the same transport equations on a coarser computational mesh. The multiscale approach is particularly useful for addressing the challenges posed by simultaneous chemical and electrochemical reactions at the anode, which complicate the modeling of internal reforming. To overcome these challenges, a novel approach is introduced [3], spatially separating the regions of chemical and electrochemical activity in the pore scale domain by taking the electrochemical active layer thickness into consideration. The integrated multiscale model is applied to a complete internal reforming SOFC to explore how electrode morphology, particularly the use of gradient microstructures, influences cell performance.