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Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Production
  • Originally published in
  • R. A. Meyers (ed.), Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, © Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2018

Glossary

Activation overpotential:

Voltage loss due to slow charge-transfer rate on the electrode surface.

Anode:

A porous electrode where hydrogen is oxidized with carbonate ions \( \left({\mathrm{CO}}_3^{2-}\right) \) to steam and carbon dioxide.

Basicity:

Log(Kd) of molten carbonates where Kd is the equilibrium constant of the reaction \( {\mathrm{CO}}_3^{2-}\overset{k_d}{\rightleftharpoons }{\mathrm{O}}^{2-}+{\mathrm{CO}}_2 \) similarly to the pH of aqueous solutions.

Cathode:

A porous electrode where oxygen is reduced with carbon dioxide to carbonate ions \( \left({\mathrm{CO}}_3^{2-}\right) \).

Effectiveness factor (ε):

A ratio of overpotential without pore diffusion resistance to that with pore diffusion resistance.

Electrolyte:

Molten carbonates providing ionic paths for the electrode reactions with combinations of Li2CO3, Na2CO3, and K2CO3.

Exchange current density (io):

An actual current density of an electrode at net zero current indicating catalytic activity of the...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Hanbat National University, Daejeon, South Korea

    Choong-Gon Lee

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  1. Choong-Gon Lee
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Correspondence to Choong-Gon Lee .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. TSRC, University of California Berkeley TSRC, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Timothy E. Lipman

  2. Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab., Berkeley, CA, USA

    Adam Z. Weber

Section Editor information

  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Adam Z. Weber

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Lee, CG. (2019). Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells. In: Lipman, T., Weber, A. (eds) Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Production. Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7789-5_141

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