Recent Progress in Development and Manufacturing of SOFC at Topsoe Fuel Cell A/S and Riso̸ DTU

Abstract

The SOFC development at Topsoe Fuel Cell A/S (TOFC) and Risø DTU is based on a R&D consortium which includes material development and manufacturing of materials, cells and stacks with metallic interconnects focussing on high electrochemical performance, durability and robustness. A significant effort is directed towards improvement of current generations as well as development of the next generation SOFC technology. The innovative concept of the next generation, aiming at improved reliability and robustness, is based on metal-supported cells and nano-structured electrodes with perspectives of several potential advantages over conventional Ni-YSZ anode supported cells. Recently, record-breaking results have been obtained on cell level as well as on stack level. The collaboration has the objective to effectively transfer scientific results to industrial technology upscaling and application. TOFC is engaged in development and demonstration of stack assemblies, multi-stack modules and PowerCore units that integrate stack modules with hot fuel processing units.

A Case Study of a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Plant on Board a Cruise Ship

“…Important progress has been achieved over the last years which has led to an increase of power density, reduction of manufacturing costs, improved reliability and improved ease of integration of balance of plant (BoP) components and enabling thermal cycles (Cooper and Brandon 2017;McPhail et al 2017;Christiansen et al 2019;Li et al 2020;Shabri et al 2021). These improvements have made SOFCs an energy technology platform that offers attractive potential for electrical generation in centralised and distributed applications, resulting more competitive than MCFC.…”

Energy Conversion with Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Systems: A Review of Concepts and Outlooks for the Short- and Long-Term

“…A summary of the current state-of-the-art of industrial fuel cell technology can be found in Table . UTC/Delphi, FuelCell Energy/Versa Power Systems, NexTech Materials, and Topsoe A/S have all achieved individual voltage SOFC degradation rates of 0.5%/1000 h or better in laboratory tests. − Most of these tests use either humidified H 2 or a mixture of H 2 and N 2 as their fuel source and operate in the range of 700–800 °C, with an overall push in the industry to achieve higher performance levels at lower temperatures. Two noteworthy advancements come from NexTech materials and Versa Power Systems, who have developed SOFCs with an active surface area of 800 and 1000 cm 2 , respectively.…”

European SOFC Technology - Status and Trends

“…The methanol-fuelled 20 kW unit has been in operation on-board a freight vessel for over 1000 hours under actual 'field' conditions (10).…”

“…Besides laboratory testing, some of these have been in operation on a freight ship as an APU running on methanol or within a district heating scheme running on biogas. Several thousand operating hours have now been achieved (10).…”