Design of Experiments for Optimizing the Microstructure of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Electrodes

The microstructure of the electrode determines the performance of the solid oxide fuel cell. Transport phenomena, involving charge and mass transfer, and electrochemical reactions occurring in the fuel cell, depend on the morphology of the electrode. Optimization of a microstructure can take multiple approaches. From experimental grid search to a computational optimization of three-dimensional microstructures. In this article, we explore the performance of the design of experiments methodology when applied to the optimization of an electrode’s microstructure. A parametrized one-dimensional model is used in design of experiments and evolutionary algorithm optimizations. We performed an optimization of a homogeneous microstructure with three optimization variables, namely two volume fractions and pore size. The design of experiments approach resulted in effectively the same thermodynamic loss compared to the evolutionary strategy. Results indicate that the design of experiments can be successfully applied to high-performance optimization of solid oxide fuel cell’s microstructures. Moreover, due to only 18 evaluations required for the design of experiments, the methodology can be effectively used in experiment-based optimization.