Publications related to Laboratory techniques for evaluating solid oxide fuel cells

Atomic level insight into irradiation effects in nuclear fuel materials

Microstructural evolution during in-pile irradiation, radiation damage effects and fission products behavior in UO2 nuclear fuel are key issues in understanding and for the modeling of the performance as well as safety characteristics of nuclear fuels in t ...

EPFL2024

Reversible photo-electrochemical device for solar hydrogen and power generation

Sophia Haussener, Alexandre Dominique M. Cattry, Saurabh Yuvraj Tembhurne, Matthieu Jonin, Mahendra Patel

A reversible photo-electrochemical device operating under concentrated irradiation could offer a stand-alone solution for producing solar fuel (in photo-driven electrolysis mode) and power (in fuel cell mode). This strategy would present the advantage of h ...

2024

Advancing Cell-Free Synthetic Biology: From sustained PURE protein synthesis to an isothermal one-pot DNA replication system

Laura Sophie Grasemann

One of the goals of synthetic biology is the development of an artificial cell. Building an artificial cell from scratch will provide a deeper understanding of fundamental mechanisms and models in biology and promises to contribute towards building novel p ...

EPFL2024

Fast online diagnosis for solid oxide fuel cells: Optimisation of total harmonic distortion tool for real-system application and reactants starvation identification

Jan Van Herle, Hamza Moussaoui, Gerald Hammerschmid

This study investigates the potential application of total harmonic distortion (THD), as a fast online monitoring tool, to identify the early signs of failure modes in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). Indeed, the timely detection and identification of faults ...

ELSEVIER2023

Three-dimensional nanoimaging of fuel cell catalyst layers

Vasiliki Tileli, Robin Pierre Alain Girod, Timon Lazaridis

Catalyst layers in proton exchange membrane fuel cells consist of platinum-group-metal nanocatalysts supported on carbon aggregates, forming a porous structure through which an ionomer network percolates. The local structural character of these heterogeneo ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

An Advanced Alkaline Al-Air Fuel Cell Using L-Ascorbic Acid Interface Layer upon Al Anode via Gradient Anti-corrosion

Pengfei Zhang, Manhui Wei

Al metal is considered as an excellent anode material for metal-air fuel cells thanks to the advantages in terms of capacity and energy density. However, the anodic parasitic corrosion has brought great obstacles to the performance breakthrough of Al-air f ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2023

2023 Roadmap on molecular modelling of electrochemical energy materials

Alfredo Pasquarello, Chunmin Zhang, Assil Bouzid

New materials for electrochemical energy storage and conversion are the key to the electrification and sustainable development of our modern societies. Molecular modelling based on the principles of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics as well as em ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2023

Photoelectrochemical Cell Engineering for Solar Energy Conversion

Dan Zhang

Solar energy is the most abundant energy source, harnessing solar energy holds the solution to the challenge of increasing global energy demand and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Photovoltaics which directly convert solar energy into electricity ...

EPFL2023

Folding the Energy Storage: Beyond the Limit of Areal Energy Density of Micro-Supercapacitors

Minkyung Kim

Despite the ever-growing interest in micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) as a promising power source for microelectronics, their low areal energy density has plagued practical applications. Herein, accordion foldable MSCs (af-MSCs) are presented as a cell archite ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2023

Organic Rankine Cycle as the Waste Heat Recovery Unit of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell: A Novel System Design for the Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Using Batteries as a Backup/Storage Unit

Jan Van Herle, Hossein Pourrahmani, Chengzhang Xu

The novelty of this study is to suggest a novel design for electric vehicle charging stations using fuel cell technology. The proposed system benefits from the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to utilize the exhaust energy of the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) st ...

MDPI2022

Compressed natural gas (cng) power system with co2 emissions capture and storage

François Maréchal, Shivom Sharma

CNG power system (1) comprising a storage tank (6) connected fluidically to a fuel conversion system (2) via an energy transfer system (4), the fuel conversion system (2) comprising a power unit using CNG as fuel and generating gas emissions comprising C02 ...

2022

Modeling and assessment of high-temperature photo-electrochemical devices

Ronald Ramiro Gutierrez Perez

In this thesis, the feasibility and performance of photo-driven electrochemical (PEC) devices working at elevated temperatures (T>700 K) is investigated and modeled. In such high-temperature PEC devices, a part of the solar spectrum is used for generating ...

EPFL2022

Design guidelines for next-generation sodium-nickel-chloride batteries

Daniel Alexander Landmann

Sodium-nickel-chloride batteries have a proven track record for backup power applications, but also show great potential for large-scale stationary electricity storage currently dominated by lithium-ion batteries. While lithium-ion cells rely on critical c ...

EPFL2022

Enhanced Solar-to-Fuel Efficiency of Ceria-Based Thermochemical Cycles via Integrated Electrochemical Oxygen Pumping

Sophia Haussener, Meng Lin, Clemens Gregor Suter

The solar thermochemical cycle based on ceria is a promising route for renewable fuel production. The solar-to-fuel efficiency of a thermochemical reactor is highly dependent on the oxygen removal during the reduction step. Conventional nitrogen sweeping ( ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Investigation on the effect of eccentricity for fuel disc irradiation tests

Andreas Pautz, Alessandro Scolaro, Carlo Fiorina

A varying degree of eccentricity always exists in the initial configuration of a nuclear fuel rod. Its impact on traditional LWR fuel is limited as the radial gap closes relatively early during irradiation. However, the effect of misalignment is expected t ...

2021

Development of a Novel Finite Volume Methodology for Multi-Dimensional Fuel Performance Applications

Alessandro Scolaro

Fuel performance codes are an essential tool for ensuring the safe and economic opera-tion of nuclear reactors. Traditionally, these codes have been developed following a simple 1.5-D modelling approach, where the fuel behavior is simplified by assuming ax ...

EPFL2021

Performance Analysis of Ammonia in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Jan Van Herle, Peter Hugh Middleton, Steve Joris, Suhas Nuggehalli Sampathkumar

Ammonia (NH3) has 17.8 wt% hydrogen and is easily liquified at 25°C and 8 bar pressure. Ammonia is carbon-free and can be produced sustainably at large scale and low cost. Solid oxide fuel cells generate electricity with efficiencies greater than 60% and c ...

ECS2021

Effects of impurities and local behavior characterization using active thermography on solid oxide electrolysis cells

Guillaume Jeanmonod

Ambitious policies are needed from every country to drastically curtail the anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases responsible for the on-going modification of the earth's climate. A quick transition towards a society fully based on renewable materials ...

EPFL2021

Experimental characterization of a solid oxide fuel cell coupled to a steam-driven micro anode off-gas recirculation fan

Stefan Diethelm, Jürg Alexander Schiffmann, Jan Van Herle, Zacharie Wuillemin, Patrick Hubert Wagner, David Constantin

While the global fuel utilization of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is limited by the stack aging rate, the fuel excess is typically used in a burner, and thus limiting the system electrical efficiency. Further, natural-gas-fueled SOFCs require treated wat ...

2020

Advanced analytical electron microscopy applied to Solid Oxide Cell materials and their degradation

Stéphane François Jean Poitel

Electron microscopy offers a wide range of techniques to study materials. Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM), in particular, allows the characterisation of samples at high-temperature using a laser heating stage, and under various gaseous at ...

EPFL2020