Method for establishing SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure electrochemical model
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of solid oxide fuel cells, and particularly relates to a method for establishing an SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure electrochemical model.
Background
Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC)/Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cells (SOEC) have received increasing attention as a promising energy conversion device for efficient use of renewable energy, and conventional SOFC/SOEC are operated at relatively high temperatures of 600-1000 ℃ to ensure rapid diffusion of oxygen ions in the electrolyte. In order to optimize the operating characteristics of SOFC/SOEC at different operating temperatures and operating states, it is important to understand the reaction kinetics of SOFC/SOEC electrodes.
The anode/cathode of industrial SOFC/SOEC consists mainly of submicron sized particles of nickel (electron conductor and catalyst) and 8YSZ (ion conductor: 8 mol% Y2O3 doped zirconia) where the fuel gas is oxidized at the three-phase interface (TPB) of nickel, 8YSZ and gas combination, this cermet electrode is usually designed with a microstructure of high volume TPB length connected to the percolation transport path of the electron, ion and gas species, the three-phase diffusion transport process and the electrochemical reaction coupling that occurs on the spatially non-uniformly distributed TPB constitutes a complex system.
It is necessary to establish a numerical simulation method capable of quantifying the microstructure of the SOFC/SOEC three-dimensional electrode and simulating the mass material transmission and reaction in the electrode so as to research the influence of the microstructure and the operation condition on the performance of the electrode. The LBM method is used for simulation, but although the method can predict the electrochemical performance of the electrode with relative accuracy, the calculation cost is relatively expensive, and the subsequent coupling of other physical fields is difficult. The finite element method is a relatively good alternative, however, no scholars can systematically study the electrochemical performance of the SOFC/SOEC electrode by using the finite element technology at present, mainly because the simulation process has the following difficulties: 1) the three-phase boundary line TPB at the intersection of yttria-stabilized zirconia, nickel and gas cannot be accurately identified, and the software cannot identify the TPB ineffective to the reaction; 2) when the electrochemical coupling of the diffusion equation is processed, the error reporting phenomenon is easy to occur, and the main reason is that the jacobian matrix singular phenomenon is encountered in the iterative calculation process of a solver.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the technical problems, the invention discloses a method for establishing an electrochemical model of an SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure, which can obtain information such as electrochemical potential distribution in YSZ, ion current and electron current distribution in an anode, gas concentration distribution, overpotential and the like, and is helpful for deeply understanding the micro electrochemical characteristics in a porous electrode when the SOFC/SOEC works in a steady state.
In contrast, the technical scheme adopted by the invention is as follows:
a method of establishing an electrochemical model of a SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure, comprising:
step S1, identifying a three-phase boundary line (TPB) at the intersection of Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ), nickel (Ni) and a gaseous phase (Gas) in the grid unit of the electrode microstructure;
step S2, establishing a coupling relationship among the diffusion equations of gas, ions and electrons, the diffusion equations of gas, ions and electrons are as follows:
in the formula i
reacIs reaction current, the terms on the right of the equal sign of the formulas (1) to (3) respectively represent the source terms of gas, ion and electron diffusion equations at three-phase boundary lines,
the molar concentration of the hydrogen is the molar concentration of the hydrogen,
and
ionic and electronic conductivity, respectively, F stands for the faraday constant,
and
electrochemical potentials of ions and electrons are respectively, and D is a diffusion coefficient;
the reaction current is shown in the following formula (9):
wherein R represents a gas constant and T represents an operating temperature, wherein the exchange current i0Is represented as follows:
local overpotential η occurring at three-phase boundary lineactThe following formula (11):
wherein, the delta G degree is standard Gibbs free energy,
and
the partial pressures at the three-phase boundary lines, respectively;
coupling the two diffusion equations by taking the source terms of the reaction currents in the diffusion equations (2) and (3) as a bridge, compiling a gas diffusion model, inputting the source term of the equation (1) in a boundary source, and realizing the full coupling of the diffusion equations (1) - (3);
and step S3, applying a constant ion and electron flux boundary condition on the boundary of the current collector and the electrolyte, applying a constant gas concentration boundary condition near the current collector, and finally performing steady state solution by using a separation solver to obtain the electrochemical characteristics of the microscopic anode.
As a further improvement of the present invention, in step S1, a script program is used to identify three-phase boundary lines where yttria-stabilized zirconia, nickel and gas meet in the grid cells of the electrode microstructure.
As a further improvement of the present invention, in step S1, cmos finite element software is used to import the divided YSZ, Ni and gas three-phase assembly grid, and the finite element software reads the grid node coordinates, node numbers and body element identification numbers and inputs the three-phase boundary line identification script program to obtain a node number matrix constituting the three-phase boundary line.
As a further improvement of the present invention, the face shared between YSZ and Ni subdomains is identified as the YSZ-Ni interface, and in the same way, the YSZ-Gas interface and the Ni-Gas interface are obtained, and the intersection of the boundary lines of the three sets of interfaces is the three-phase boundary line.
As a further improvement of the invention, a three-phase diffusion and electrochemical reaction fully-coupled model is established by utilizing COMSOL finite element software; and writing a program to call COMSOL, automatically selecting the identified TPB boundary and other boundary condition definitions, and processing simulation results under different variable conditions in batch.
As a further improvement of the present invention, in step S2, the gas diffusion model uses a dust-containing gas model, and assuming that the total pressure in the electrode is constant, the gas diffusion model formula is as follows:
in the formula yjIs a mole fraction, NiIs the molar flow, piIs the partial pressure, where the indices i and j denote hydrogen and steam, respectively, Di,jAnd Di,kBinary and Knudsen diffusion coefficients, respectively.
The diffusion coefficient in formula (1) is:
the binary and knudsen diffusion coefficient forms are as follows:
p is the pressure of the gas to be heated,
and
respectively the molecular mass of hydrogen and water,
and
the respective diffusion volumes of hydrogen and water vapor, and r is the average pore radius, which may be 0.75 μm.
The invention also discloses application of the electrochemical model of the SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure, wherein the electrochemical model of the SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure is obtained by adopting the method for establishing the electrochemical model of the SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure, the electrochemical characteristics of the obtained micro electrode are obtained by steady state solution, the electrochemical potential distribution, the ion flow and electron flow distribution and the gas concentration distribution condition in YSZ are observed, and the relation between the overpotential and the input current density is obtained.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the beneficial effects that:
firstly, by adopting the technical scheme of the invention, an electrochemical model with fully coupled gas, ion and electron diffusion equations is established, and the calculation result of the model can obtain a series of simulation results of electrochemical potential distribution, ion flow and electron flow distribution, gas concentration distribution condition, the relation between overpotential and input current density and the like in YSZ, thereby having certain guiding significance for electrode structure optimization and engineering design.
Secondly, by adopting the technical scheme of the invention, the TPB in the electrode microstructure can be accurately identified, the defect that invalid TPB is easily selected by software in the prior art is overcome, and important preconditions are provided for establishing an electrochemical coupling model.
Thirdly, by adopting the technical scheme of the invention, the functions of calling the model, automatically selecting TPB boundary and other boundary conditions and processing simulation results in batches by inputting different variables can be realized.
Drawings
Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a simulation analysis method according to an embodiment of the present invention.
Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of an electrode microstructure grid unit according to an embodiment of the invention.
FIG. 3 shows an input current density of 0.7A/cm according to an embodiment of the present invention2The electrochemical potential profile in YSZ and the voltage profile at TPB are plotted, where (a) is the electrochemical potential profile in YSZ and (b) is the voltage profile at TPB.
Fig. 4 is a graph showing the distribution of ion flow and electron flow in the direction of current flow for SOFC anodes in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
The following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention is provided in connection with the accompanying drawings and the examples, but not limited thereto, and it is to be understood that the present invention is not limited to the modifications and equivalents, and that the modifications and equivalents may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
In view of the defects of the prior art, the invention provides a method for establishing an electrochemical model of an SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure, and a flow chart is shown in FIG. 1 and mainly comprises the following steps:
step S1, importing an electrode microstructure network from the outside by using COMSOL finite element software, calling a subroutine script to identify TPB, and identifying a three-phase boundary line (TPB) at the intersection of Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ), nickel (Ni) and a gaseous phase (Gas) in an electrode microstructure grid unit.
Step S2, a coupling relationship between gas, ion and electron diffusion equations is established.
Step S3, the steady state value is solved.
And step S4, finally, analyzing the result according to the solved result.
The invention aims to autonomously develop a program script capable of accurately identifying TPB, and the main realization mode is that a node number matrix forming the TPB can be obtained by inputting grid node coordinates, node numbers and body element identification numbers. The main realization mode is that the shared surface between YSZ and Ni subdomains is automatically identified as YSZ-Ni interface, and the YSZ-Gas interface and the Ni-Gas interface can be obtained in the same way, and TPB is defined as the intersection of the boundary lines of the three groups of interfaces; establishing a three-phase diffusion and electrochemical reaction fully-coupled model by utilizing COMSOL finite element software; and writing a program to call COMSOL, automatically selecting the identified TPB boundary and other boundary condition definitions, and processing simulation results under different variable conditions in batch. The model can obtain the relation between the overpotential and the input current density by analyzing the electrochemical potential distribution, the ion current and electron current distribution and the gas concentration distribution in the YSZ, and is helpful for deeply understanding the working mode of the microstructure of the porous electrode.
The following is a detailed description of specific embodiments.
In the present embodiment, an electrode microstructure unit of 10 μm x 10, 10 μm x 10 μm is selected for simulation, and the previous work includes 3D reconstruction of the microscopic electrodes, and then grid division is performed by using commercial software, where the number of grids is about 320 ten thousand, as shown in fig. 2.
The simulation analysis method, namely the establishment method of the electrochemical model of the SOFC/SOEC electrode microstructure comprises the following steps:
the method comprises the following steps: starting COMSOL finite element software through a main program, inputting an instruction, and guiding the divided three-phase (including YSZ, Ni and gas) assembly grid into the software;
step two: and calling an autonomously developed subprogram to identify a three-phase boundary line (TPB), and inputting grid node coordinates, node numbers and body element identification numbers to obtain a node number matrix forming the TPB. The main realization mode is that the shared surface between YSZ and Ni subdomains is automatically identified as YSZ-Ni interface, and the YSZ-Gas interface and the Ni-Gas interface can be obtained in the same way, and TPB is defined as the intersection of the boundary lines of the three groups of interfaces;
step three: establishing a coupling relationship between gas, ion and electron diffusion equations, assuming YSZ and Ni are ideal ion and electron conductors, the gas, ion and electron diffusion equations can be written as:
in the formula i
reacIs the reaction current, the terms on the right of the equal signs of (1) - (3) represent the source terms of the gas, ion and electron diffusion equations at the three-phase boundary line, and the source terms are zero for non-TPB,
the molar concentration of the hydrogen is the molar concentration of the hydrogen,
and
respectively, the ionic and electronic conductivities, respectively,
and
electrochemical potentials of ions and electrons, respectively, F is the faraday constant, and the gas diffusion model uses a Dusty Gas Model (DGM) which, assuming a constant total pressure in the electrode, is given by the following equation:
in the formula yjIs a mole fraction, NiIs the molar flow, piIs the partial pressure, where the indices i and j denote hydrogen and steam, respectively, Di,jAnd Di,kBinary and Knudsen diffusion coefficients, respectively, and T is the operating temperature.
The binary and knudsen diffusion coefficient forms are as follows:
p is the pressure of the gas to be heated,
and
respectively the molecular mass of hydrogen and water,
and
the hydrogen and water vapor diffusion volumes, respectively, were taken to be average pore radii r of 0.75 μm.
The reaction current is given by the Butler-Volmer equation as follows:
wherein R represents a gas constant and T represents an operating temperature, wherein the exchange current i0Is represented as follows:
local overpotential η occurring at TPBactThe following formula:
deltag deg. is the standard gibbs free energy,
and
respectively, the partial pressure at TPB.
Step four: in COMSOL software, the source terms of the equation (1) are input at a 'boundary source' to realize the full coupling relation of the diffusion equations (1) to (3) by taking the source terms of the reaction currents in the diffusion equations (2) and (3) as bridges and coupling the two diffusion equations by 'weak form' operation, compiling a gas diffusion model by a PDE module. Applying a constant ionic and electronic flux boundary condition (Newman condition) of 0.7A/cm at the collector and electrolyte boundary2Applying a constant gas concentration boundary condition (Dirichlet boundary condition) of 9.46mol/m in the vicinity of the current collector3And finally, carrying out steady state solution by using a separate solver.
Step five: important electrochemical characteristics of the micro-electrode can be obtained through simulation results, and it can be observed that electrochemical potential distribution and voltage distribution at TPB in YSZ which cannot be obtained through experiments are shown in FIG. 3, and anode ion current and electron current distribution curves are shown in FIG. 4.
In addition, the gas concentration distribution can be obtained, and the relation between the overpotential and the input current density can also be obtained.
By adopting the technical scheme, the TPB is identified, the COMSOL finite element software is utilized to establish a three-phase diffusion and electrochemical reaction full-coupling model, and a program is compiled to call COMSOL, so that the identified TPB boundary and other boundary condition definitions can be automatically selected, and simulation results under different variable conditions can be processed in batches. The model can obtain the relation between the overpotential and the input current density by analyzing the electrochemical potential distribution, the ion current and electron current distribution and the gas concentration distribution in the YSZ, and is helpful for deeply understanding the working mode of the microstructure of the porous electrode.
The foregoing is a more detailed description of the invention in connection with specific preferred embodiments and it is not intended that the invention be limited to these specific details. For those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains, several simple deductions or substitutions can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention, and all shall be considered as belonging to the protection scope of the invention.