Sensor technology for in situ monitoring of the surface temperature distribution of SOFC

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is the most efficient energy conversion technology of alltime in producing electricity from fuels. However, temperature-driven premature degradation is one of the biggest problems that impedes the widespread use of this technology. Understanding the temperature distribution of an operating SOFC is central to mitigate such degradations as well as to further enhance the performance. The published efforts on SOFC temperature sensing, except small button cells, are mainly confined to measure temperature only from the gas channels (fuel/ air) with relatively low spatial resolution. However, the electrodes’ temperature distribution measured with an adequate spatial resolution is more desirable than the gas temperature to investigate a cells’ behaviour and its correlation to a stack’s performance. The insufficiency of technology to in situ monitor the cell surface temperature distribution with an adequate spatial resolution was identified as a crucial research gap in the SOFC development cycle. Therefore, this research is aimed at developing a sensing technology to monitor in situ the cell surface temperature distribution of an operating SOFC with an adequately high spatial resolution and applying that technology to get a better insight into SOFC operation. [Continues.]