Insight into the ammonia decomposition/oxidation kinetics in ammonia
protonic ceramic fuel cells via elementary modeling
Abstract
Protonic ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs) can efficiently convert the chemical
energy of fuel into electricity, with alternative fuel range. Ammonia
has been regarded as a promising fuel for PCFCs due to its carbon-free
and hydrogen-rich properties and easy storage/transportation. However,
the performance of ammonia PCFCs (NH3-PCFCs) is inferior to the hydrogen
PCFCs (H2-PCFCs) because of sluggish and complex kinetics at anode. In
this work, we establish an elementary reaction kinetic model for
NH3-PCFCs, investigate the effect of reaction parameters, and explore
the coupling mechanism between the ammonia decomposition and
electrochemical reaction. Importantly, the ammonia decomposition and
electrochemical reaction can be regulated by adjusting anode parameters,
then affecting the performance ratio of NH3-PCFCs and H2-PCFCs. Thus,
the ammonia-hydrogen performance ratio of the cell can exceed 95% at
550 ℃ after accelerating the ammonia decomposition reaction. Our work
provides insights into the kinetics in NH3-PCFCs for improving their
performance with optimization.