A Modeling Study of the Effect of Cathode Delamination on SOFC Performance

In this paper cathode delamination is studied in order to better understand its effect on the electrochemical performance of planar solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). In recent published work cathode delamination has been suggested to play a significant role in voltage degradation. Voltage degradation has challenged this new technology in recent years and has prevented SOFC systems to enter the commercial market except for a few prototypes. The objective of this work is to quantify the effect of cathode delamination on the cell electrochemical performance. This study will better elucidate the delamination problem which will in turn inspire more work to improve cathode adhesion by modifying the cathode properties. Modeling results indicate that the SOFC performance is affected if the cathode cannot maintain a good attachment with the SOFC assembly. Voltage-current density curves indicate that the performance of the SOFC declines as the percentage of the separation increases. Therefore a portion of the observed voltage degradation could be attributed to the delamination of the cathode.