Thermal transients modelling of a reformer unit for diagnostic analysis of SOFC-based systems

Solid oxide fuel cell-based systems constitute one of the most promising technologies for future power generation. In order to make them marketable, many issues as durability and operational management have to be overcome. Therefore the understanding of thermodynamic and chemical mechanisms, that govern SOFC BoP components (beyond that the stack one) behaviour in both steadystate and transient operation, becomes fundamental. In this context, after stack dynamic analysis [1] and investigations relative to SOFC-based systems [2,3], the study was extended to the methane steam reformer unit, with particular attention to its dynamic thermal behaviour. In particular the overall analysis methodology and the required experimental campaign were defined as described in the following. Future work will deal with the execution of all the scheduled tests and the model setup according to the developed methodology.