Recent developments in the area of SOFC electrolyte materials has allowed for the creation electrolyte material sets that can be operated at lower temperatures than their traditional counterparts. By allowing lower temperature operation of SOFCs, these novel material sets introduce a potential vector for cost-savings in fuel cell design by adding potential solutions to several key challenges that face SOFCs such as reductions in: support material costs, insulation thicknesses, thermal mismatch, startup and cool-down wear on the system, and many of the (temperature dependent) SOFC degradation mechanisms. Even though the material sets are still in development, and always evolving as the general understanding of ceramics expands, existing materials are already starting to show potential to dramatically change the way in which we utilize SOFCs today.
This study focused on the development of a dynamic, spatially resolved MATLAB-Simulink model to aid in the design, analysis, and control of LT-SOFC systems. The model developed was organized to allow for study of the challenges of integrating a fuel cell system where the reformer temperature is significantly higher than the operating temperature of the cell itself. While the primary focus of the study was to investigate a single potential design that properly utilizes the temperature dynamics of a low temperature system across a wide range of test cases, a library of building blocks was created to allow for investigation into any number of design orientations or test cases in order to promote future work on the subject.