Sea Salt Particles Filtration for SOFCs Using Pleated Filters via Various Nonwoven Filter Media in Newly Designed Packaging Configurations

摘要

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) are being considered for use onboard ships as power sources due to their high efficiency and lower waste emission. However, the exposure of several air contaminants like gaseous impurities and particulates is significantly detrimental to the performance of these fuel cells. In the marine environment, sea salt particles are the most common particulates and their removal from air stream fed into cathode side of fuel cell system is highly essential. To remove sea salt particles in a more efficient manner, our focus is on the design and optimization of a new pleated filter configuration (MESAs) and new nonwoven filtration media. Multi-Element Structured Arrays (MESAs) that developed by our group represent a new approach that can further increase the filtration area and reduce the pressure drop across the filter by integrating several pleated filters into a single unit. In this study, both single filter and MESAs were tested on a 24" × 24" test rig, which is built based on ASHRAE 52.2 standard, for the filtration performance, including particle removal efficiency and pressure drop across the system. After comparing the results, MESA's can reduce the initial pressure drop by ca. 70% and provide higher removal efficiency. The effects of varying media type, filter depth, pleat counts and MESA's counts were also experimentally investigated. The new nonwoven filter media consists of a three dimensional network of sinter-locked fibers. The diameter of the fibers is in the range of nano-scale to micron-scale. The effects of important media parameters like fiber diameter, solid volume fraction (SVF) of certain fiber material, total voidage and media thickness on filtration performance characteristics, including filtration efficiency, pressure drop and quality factor were studied in this work. Furthermore, loading capacity of salt particles, which is another significant parameter for filter media performance, was investigated as well. Various filter configurations and different types of filter media were experimentally tested. The results and discussion will be presented in depth.