Electrical Production Effect on the Planar Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Overheating Youcef Sahli 1 , Houcine Moungar 1* , Mohammed Benhammou 1 , Bariza Zitouni 2 , Hocine Ben-Moussa 3 1 Unité de Recherche en Energies Renouvelables en Milieu Saharien, URERMS, Centre de Développement des Energies Renouvelables CDER, Adrar 01000, Algeria 2 Institut des Sciences Vétérinaires et des Sciences Agronomiques, Université de Batna 1, Batna 05000, Algeria 3 Département de Mécanique, Faculté de Technologie, Université de Batna 2, Batna 05000, Algeria Corresponding Author Email: h.moungar@urerms.dz https://doi.org/10.18280/ijht.400503 ABSTRACT Received: 25 September 2019 Accepted: 16 August 2022 In this work, a steady-state three-dimensional model is employed to investigate the heat transfer phenomena in a Planar Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (P-SOFC) and determine the current density impact on the overheating of this fuel cell type. The thermoelectric characteristics of various components of the P-SOFC are provided from the standard materials: Ni-YSZ for the anode, YSZ for the electrolyte, La1-xSrxMnO3 for the cathode, and LaCrO3 for the interconnectors. The partial differential equations governing the heat transfer phenomena in the different cell parts are modelled using the finite difference method in a three- dimensional environment. A program in FORTRAN language is locally developed for solving simultaneously the discretized heat conduction equation. The interest of this work is focused on determining the temperature profiles, fields, and distributions as well as evaluating and analysing the heat created by the current densities produced by the cell itself. The obtained results’ analysis shows that for the considered geometric configuration, the P-SOFC components’ heating is found to be proportional to the electric energy production. Keywords: P-SOFC, heat, current density, overheating 1. INTRODUCTION In the last few decades, the growth in energy demand and environmental protection problems required finding new energy sources more productive and less polluting. Fuel cells appear as a tool of clean energy production in the future, which use hydrogen as fuel. They convert chemical energy into electrical energy. They are generally classified according to their operating temperature. The high operating temperature of SOFC causes a very large heat exchange between their various components, in which the heat is produced in several ways. Owing to the complexity due to multiple phenomena taking place when operating these fuel cells makes it difficult to evaluate separately these phenomena in the experiment. Alternatively, the research laboratory developed numerical simulation programs can better predict and assess simultaneously and individually the behavior of happening phenomena. In this context, several studies concerning Solid Oxide Fuel cells have been addressed in the literature. Inui et al. [1] have studied the influence of the hydrogen and carbon monoxide mixture in the fuel on the P-SOFC performance in a three-dimensional environment. Sun and Ou [2] have investigated and evaluated the influence of channel designs on the power density in a single P-SOFC unit using an unsteady three-dimensional model by disregarding radiation heat exchanges. They have compared also the results of 3 different oxidant compositions; 100% O2, 50% N2 / 50% O2 and air. Similarly, Danilov and Tade [3] have used and applied an unsteady three-dimensional model to investigate a SOFC stack, which consists of 29 parallel cells, the model includes fluid dynamics, electrochemistry, mass and heat transfers by considering only two modes of them: conductive and convective. Heat energy production is caused by the activation of chemical reactions and ohmic losses. In addition, the results are obtained by resolving the equations relating to the involved phenomena using the most used commercial code ‘FLUENT’. They have finally confirmed that their proposed model is useful for optimizing the SOFC design. Moreover, Chaisantikulwat et al. [4] have presented an unsteady three- dimensional model for a P-SOFC, which provides the polarization curves, the molar fraction, gas speeds, temperatures, species concentrations, and current distributions. Yang et al. [5] have employed a steady-state three-dimensional tool, to simulate the impact of several parameters in P-SOFCs. They have neglected the radiative heat transfer and taken into account that the heat is generated according to several mechanisms, namely the heat sources due to the electrochemical reactions, activation overvoltage, and ohmic. The elaborated numerical tool is then used to simulate a set of parameters such as temperature, species, current densities, etc. Ho et al. [6] have examined the influence of air inlet conditions, chemical species, and current density distributions for the counter and co-flow configurations. The unsteady three- dimensional model consisted of the coupling of different physical phenomena such as fluid dynamics, electric charge transport as well as mass and heat transfers. In their analysis carried out using Star-CD commercial code, the radiative heat transfer and all heat source types, except the chemical source are neglected. They have shown that the results obtained with the counter-flow configuration are better compared to the co- flow configuration. Khaleel et al. [7] have elaborated a simulation tool for P-SOFCs using the MARC analysis code, International Journal of Heat and Technology Vol. 40, No. 5, October, 2022, pp. 1133-1140 Journal homepage: http://iieta.org/journals/ijht 1133