Thermo-environmental performance analysis of irreversible solid oxide fuel cell – Stirling heat engine

ABSTRACT

A hybrid, irreversible solid oxide fuel cell – Stirling heat engine system is taken into account. Thermoenvironmental criterion approach, which enables to evaluate environmental impact of any thermal cycle, is applied to the considered system for the first time. Power density, exergy density, thermoenvironmental function density, energy and exergy efficiencies are considered. Results are presented and discussed to determine optimum operating conditions. Some important results for the hybrid system are ordered: maximum power density is 7489.92 (A m⁻²), maximum energy and exergy efficiencies are 0.800 and 0.887, respectively, and finally, thermoenvironmental function density is 0.0276 (W mpts⁻¹ m⁻²).

KEYWORDS:

• Solid oxide fuel cell
• Stirling cycle
• thermoenvironmental function
• irreversibility
• finite-time thermodynamics

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the reviewers for their valuable comments, which have been utilized in improving the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.