Abstract The performance of a solid oxide electrolyte direct carbon fuel cell (SO-DCFC) is limited by the slow carbon gasification kinetics at the typical operating temperatures of cell: 650–850 °C. To overcome such limitation, potassium salt is used as a catalyst to speed up the dry carbon gasification reactions, increasing the power density by five-fold at 700–850 °C. The cell performance is shown to be sensitive to the bed temperature, emphasizing the role of gasification rates and that of CO production. Given the finite bed size, the cell performance is time-dependent as the amount of CO available changes. A reduced elementary reaction mechanism for potassium-catalyzed carbon gasification was proposed using kinetic data obtained from the experimental measurements. A comprehensive model including the catalytic gasification reactions and CO electrochemistry is used to examine the impact of the catalytic carbon gasification process on the device performance. The power density is maximum around 50% of the OCV, where carbon utilization is also near maximum. Results show that bed height and porosity impact the power density; a thicker bed maintains the power almost constant for longer times while lower porosity delivers higher power density in the early stages.