Effect of Anodic Gas Compositions on the Overpotential in a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell

Effect of Anodic Gas Compositions on the Overpotential in a Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell

Anodic overpotential has been investigated with gas composition changes in a $100cm^2$ class molten carbonate fuel cell. The overpotential was measured with steady state polarization, reactant gas addition (RA), inert gas step addition (ISA), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) methods at different anodic inlet gas compositions, i.e., $H_2:CO_2:H_2O=0.69:0.17:0.14\;atm\;and\;H_2:CO_2:H_2O=0.33:0.33:0.33\;atm$, at a fixed $H_2$ flow rate. The results demonstrate that the anodic overpotential decreases with increasing $CO_2\;and\;H_2O$ flow rates, indicating the anode reaction is a gas-phase mass-transfer control process of the reactant species, $H_2,\;CO_2,\;and\;H_2O$. It was also found that the mass-transfer resistance due to the $H_2$ species slightly increases at higher $CO_2\;and\;H_2O$ flow rates. EIS showed reduction of the lower frequency semi-circle with increasing $H_2O\;and\;CO_2$ flow rate without affecting the high frequency semi-circle.