Anode Materials in the Context of Fuel Processing

The kinetics of methane reforming over nickel cermet anodes have been fairly well established for high-temperature operation [3,20,21]. It has been found that different nickel cermet anodes can have markedly different reforming activities [3,24,26,76.91,92], 

A number of researchers have studied nickel/ceria cermet anodes for both zirconia and ceria-gadolinia electrolyte-based SOFCs [30,93-96], Nickel/ceria 

Recent studies have also identified some alternative anodes, one being copper-based and incorporating significant quantities of ceria in addition to YSZ [68,114] and the other adding yttria-doped ceria to nickel and YSZ [69], both of which have been reported to show considerable promise for the direct electrocatalytic oxidation of the hydrocarbon fuels, without the need for any co-fed oxidant. However, the conditions under which such anodes can be used for direct hydrocarbon oxidation may be a problem for their widespread application, whilst their long-term performance in terms of deactivation resulting from carbon deposition remains to be investigated. 

Another approach that is currently being investigated to give greater control of the reforming reactions in the SOFC is the development of mass transfer controlled steam reforming catalysts/anodes wnth reduced activity [37]. The development of such materials would minimise the temperature gradients 

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