Off-campus Michigan Tech users: To download campus access theses or dissertations, please use the following button to log in with your Michigan Tech ID and password: log in to proxy server

Non-Michigan Tech users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this thesis or dissertation through interlibrary loan.

Date of Award

2016

Document Type

Campus Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics (PhD)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Advisor 1

Seong-Young Lee

Committee Member 1

Jeffrey Allen

Committee Member 2

Reza Shahbazian Yassar

Committee Member 3

Mohammad Ahmed Khaleel

Abstract

Sunlight provides a clean, renewable, and cheap energy source. Since the beginning of the 1980s, solar cell technology has seen enormous development due to an increase in world energy consumption, and the concerns about the environmental impact associated with combustion of fossil fuels. New innovative solar cell materials and concepts have been evaluated, and a number of promising options for future developments are currently available. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) is considered a very promising photovoltaic technology since it is made of low-cost world-wide available materials, and also it provide a good performance under different solar incident angles and low light conditions. Fuel cells are also a promising technology that provides high efficient energy and low emissions. Fuel cells convert stored chemical energy in fuel directly into electricity via electrochemical reaction without combustion. The solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) is considered the most promising technology for power generation; it has the highest operating temperature (about 1000 °C) among practically all the important fuel cells such as the molten carbonate fuel cell. Today, hydrogen is considered the primary fuel for SOFC stacks; it can be produced by water electrolysis or a wide range of fossils fuel via thermal-chemical process. Due to the increase in world energy consumption driven by economic growth and increasing population, as well the realization that fossil fuel sources were limited and relatively expensive, a combined cycle of SOFC and DSSC with water electrolysis can provide a clean and efficient energy. The water electrolysis will be used to provide hydrogen that feed the SOFC. However, the efficiency of DSSC and SOFC to be a competitive energy source has not been achieved. For this reason this dissertation will investigate theoretically and analytically different electrodes, electrolyte materials properties, and operating parameters for the performance of the combined cycle of DSSC-SOFC with water electrolysis.

Share

COinS