Seminar - “Preparation of Carbon-Tolerant Anodes for Solid-Oxide Fuel Cells using Microwave Irradiation” by Shamiul Islam, Postdoctoral Fellow, Carbon Management Canada Project, University of Calgary

Thursday, June 5, 2014 11:30 am - 11:30 am EDT (GMT -04:00)

ABSTRACT:  Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is an efficient electrochemical device that directly converts the chemical energy of a fuel into electricity. The conventional Ni/YSZ anode of SOFC accumulates carbon when operated in hydrocarbon fuels. The accumulated carbon degrades cell performance and eventually damages the anode microstructure.

The addition of carbon-tolerance enhancing materials (Cu, BaO) helps to reduce the carbon accumulation at Ni/YSZ anode and thereby improve cell performance.

Dr. Islam will talk about the microwave irradiation technique to deposit Cu and BaO nanoparticles on the Ni/YSZ anode of electrolyte-supported SOFC. This work was performed under the NSERC SOFC Strategic Research Network project. The advantage of using the microwave irradiation method is the reduced time required for anode preparation. The irradiation times are on the order of seconds in comparison to impregnation that usually requires multiple steps (decomposition of the metal precursors) and hours if not days for the preparation of similar anodes.

Although Cu helps to reduce carbon accumulation, Cu is not thermally stable at the SOFC testing temperature (~1073 K), and hence, a more thermally stable compound (BaO) is incorporated to reduce carbon accumulation. With the conventional technique (impregnation), BaO gets distributed both on Ni and YSZ grains. The BaO is stable on Ni but interacts with YSZ causing morphological change and volume expansion of YSZ, which is problematic in this solid device. As such, an alternative method, based on microwave irradiation, is developed to selectively deposit BaO only on Ni and minimize the interaction between BaO and YSZ. The anode developed by this microwave irradiation technique shows comparable electrochemical performance in dry CH4 to that of conventional and impregnated anodes, and lower carbon accumulation than the conventional anode.

Bio-sketch:  Dr. Islam completed his BSc in Chemical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology in 2006. He then pursued MSc in Material Engineering from Soonchunhyang University (South Korea) during the period 2007-2009, where he focused on the development of tubular and multi-tubular solid-oxide fuel cell. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Calgary in 2013. His PhD thesis was on the development of carbon-tolerant anodes for solid-oxide fuel cells, which was funded by NSERC SOFC Strategic Research Network. Since then he worked as a postdoctoral fellow within the Carbon Management Canada project in University of Calgary, where he looked at the catalytic gasification and the kinetic modeling of beneficiated-coal.

Dr. Islam is specialized in solid-oxide fuel cell technology, catalytic gasification, heterogeneous catalyzed reaction, kinetic measurements and modeling of chemical reactions.