Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics

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Forschungsgebiete der Abteilung Computergestützte Elektrochemie

Batteries

The further improvement of energy density, cycleability and safety of batteries requires a detailed understanding of the fundamental physical, chemical, and fluid mechanical processes occurring within the cell. To this goal, multi-scale and multi-physics models as well as modern numerical simulation methods are developed and applied. The work is located at the Helmholtz-Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage (HIU).

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Polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) and direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) electrode and cell level modeling

The PEFC or DMFC single cell is a complex arrangement of multiple functional layers, including the polymer membrane, catalyst layers, microporous layers, and gas diffusion layers. A central task of the modeling activities is to describe, understand and optimize the functionalities of these layers. Typically, multiple different phases and materials are involved, that is, solid membrane, solid catalyst, solid diffusion layer, liquid aqueous phase, and gas phase (Fig. 1), all of which have different transport and chemical properties that need to be included in the model.

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Solid oxide cells (SOFC&SOEC) electrode and cell level modeling

The Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is characterized by high operating temperatures (600-900°C). Within an SOFC electrode, fundamental physicochemical processes involve heterogeneous catalytic chemistry and electrochemistry, which are coupled to transport processes in the porous electrode structures. The complex interaction between these processes requires models with detailed kinetic mechanisms and transport on a microscopic level. A number of crucial issues concerning the influence of catalyst structure and composition, reforming chemistry and direct oxidation, carbon deposition, nickel oxide formation, cell aging etc. are addressed.

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