Studies on Direct Ethanol use in SOFCs

We report here on the investigation of the direct use of ethanol in solid oxide fuel cells. While the operation on Ni-YSZ anodes leads to detrimental catalytic carbon deposition even at high steam to carbon ratio, diluted ethanol can be directly used on LSCM anodes. Steady operation seems achievable only at high temperatures (900 degrees C) due to gas-phase reaction carbon deposits. However, it is demonstrated that the initial performance is fully recovered after removal of these deposits. The addition of CGO to the LSCM anode is shown to considerably improve the anode performance, by limiting the gas-phase carbon deposition to a small layer beneficial to the performance. Recorded performance was higher on diluted ethanol than on humidified hydrogen. No degradation was observed on short term tests, and a polarization resistance of 0.3 Omega.cm(2) was achieved on ethanol diluted (15 mol. %) in steam.