Reversibility in dual membrane fuel cell

A promising direction in the development of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) is the reversible approach in which the device operates as fuel cell and as electrolyzer. Reversibility is very important for coupling with RES. A serious problem is the asymmetry of the system when operating in the two modes. A definitive breakthrough is the separation of the water production/consumption from the two electrodes. For fuel cell mode this idea has been realized in the innovative concept of the dual membrane fuel cell (DMFC), recently developed and proved in a FP7 project. The cell consists of three independent chambers for hydrogen, oxygen and water. They can be separately optimized. This work presents reversibility studies of the DMFC. The first results are very promising. They show good reversibility without application of a special catalyst for enhancement of the water splitting. The electrolyzer mode has lower overvoltage and thus lower internal resistance.