A strategy to reduce the impact of tar on a Ni-YSZ anode of solid oxide fuel cells

High-temperature raw coke oven gas (COG) is a promising fuel for use in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) because it is rich in both hydrogen (55%-60%) and methane (23%-27%). However, the tar present in COG limits its ability to directly generate power using state-of-art SOFCs because the presence of tar limits the cell's performance and stability. In this work, a strategy is presented in the attempt to reduce the influence of tar on SOFCs by applying a La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 catalyst as a protective layer for the cell. The results showed that 44-g Nm(-3) toluene had a profoundly negative effect on the performance of a conventional cell, which showed severely reduced performance after only 1.4 hours of exposure to toluene-contaminated hydrogen. In contrast, the catalyst-modified cell showed good stability for at least 110 hours under the same conditions. This work provides a promising route to directly utilize raw COG as an SOFC fuel that is also suitable for biosyngas.