Dr. Jan Van herle and Prof. Jürg Schiffmann will attend the SOFC XVI conference in Kyoto, Japan. If you have any questions, feel free to contact them. Prof. Schiffmann will present the paper:
in Room A on Tuesday, 10th of September.
Abstract
The Laboratory for Applied Mechanical Design (LAMD) designed, manufactured, and experimentally tested a novel steam-driven anode off-gas recirculation (AOR) fan for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) systems up to 10 kWel. Due to the dynamic steam-lubricated bearings, the AOR unit is expected to have a high lifetime, even at elevated rotational speeds and temperatures. Additional, the unit is oil-free, explosion-proof, very compact, and cheap to manufacture. The AOR fan diameter is at 19.2 mm and the nominal rotational speed is 175 000 rpm. The unit was coupled to a 6 kWel SOFC system, reaching electrical gross DC efficiencies, based on the fuel lower heating value (LHV), of 66 % in part load (4.5 kWel gross DC) and 61 % in full load (6.3 kWel) for a global fuel utilization of 85 %. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this was the first time that a steam-driven AOR fan was demonstrated in-situ with an SOFC system.
