Connected Three-Phase Boundary Length Evaluation in Modeled Sintered Composite Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes

A numerical methodology for evaluating the three-phase boundary length (TPBL) in sintered composite solid oxide fuel cell electrodes is developed. Three-dimensional models of a representative volume element of sintered composite electrodes are generated for which the mean particle diameter, composition, and total porosity may be specified as input parameters. Tomographic methods are used to reconstruct the modeled electrode and the percolation for each phase is evaluated. The connected TPBL is calculated for a range of electrode designs and comparisons are made with calculated TPBL values available in the literature. The maximum connected TPBL occurred at a porosity of 0.21 and at equal solid volume fractions of ionic and electronic conducting phases for particles having the same mean diameter and particle size variance. A cubic envelope having a minimum length of 14 times the mean particle diameter was necessary to adequately represent the electrode structure.