Understanding Transport and Reaction Processes in the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Anode at Sub-50 nm Resolution

The Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) holds great promise for a variety of portable power based applications because of the fuel flexibility and gravimetric power densities that it can maintain. These advantages are a product of the SOFC’s ability to directly use a wide variety of hydrocarbon based fuels that maintain high energy densities and are relatively easy to store. Models can be developed to describe the operation of SOFCs, where the pore structure is described with idealized structures or quantified with parameters. However, there are discrepancies in fundamental descriptions within these models resulting from a lack of a fundamental understanding of the physics of the associated pore scale processes. To continue development efforts, an improved understanding of the role of the anode microstructure at the pore scale and below is required. This paper will review our effort to develop such an understanding through anode structure reconstruction and characterization using non-destructive high resolution x-ray computed tomography (XCT).