SOFC stacks for mobile applications with excellent robustness towards thermal stresses

Optimizing Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Performance to Re-evaluate Its Role in the Mobility Sector

“…The properties of the silica-based lightweight microporous insulation board Promalight-1000X, which is wrapped around the stacks and around the hot box and burner when the extended heat loss model is solved (section S1.5), are listed in Table . Stack power densities are calculated without consideration of top and bottom compression plates, but they contain, though they are not modeled explicitly (see Section ), the volume required for the gas manifolds of 1 cm width adjacent to the stack inlets and outlets. , Figure illustrates a front view of the final ASC and MSC RU designs, while Figure b provides a cut-away view of the thermally insulated MSC stack.…”

“…However, the model suggests that, aside from material development, power densities in the range of 3–4 kW L –1 as, e.g., stated by PowerCell for scalable PEM-based stacks requires further innovations in SOFC stack development, e.g., by significantly increasing active cell areas, , by reducing the RU thickness enabling a very compact design, , or even by all-printing the cell layers without additional mechanical support . Assuming the cell and stack footprints to be constant while keeping the simulated performance outputs, the RU thickness would need to be lowered from 2.49 to 1.53 or 1.15 mm to achieve 3 or 4 kW L –1 , respectively, at 0.8 V, whereas a reduction to 1.89 or 1.42 mm would be required for operation at 0.75 V. Markedly, a RU thickness of only 1.4 mm has been previously reported by Hagen et al based on short stacks . Moreover, pressurization of the SOFC module when targeting hybrid power generation by coupling the fuel cell module with an internal combustion engine or a gas turbine also enables a significant increase in stack power density, as demonstrated by Henke et al, which provides another perspective for realizing decreased stack and system sizes.…”

“…Applying single phase mixed-conducting strontium-doped perovskites such as lanthanum strontium cobaltite (LSC) or lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite (LSCF) as the cathode material is a frequent choice of stack manufacturers, 18,29,32 whereas it is a well-known and promising strategy to boost the MIEC cathode's ionic conductivity with additions of CGO electrolyte material, yielding particularly low polarization resistances and still showing good matching of the chemical and physical properties with other cell components. 20,31,34 For these reasons, the LSCF-CGO composite is chosen as the electrode material for the cathode side. From a modeling perspective, at the electrode scale, several 1-D transient continuum models based on effective medium theory have been developed, capturing the interplay between microstructure and kinetics for various electrode materials.…”

“…Consequently, Ni-ScSZ and Ni-CGO form the selection of anode materials in this study. Applying single phase mixed-conducting strontium-doped perovskites such as lanthanum strontium cobaltite (LSC) or lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite (LSCF) as the cathode material is a frequent choice of stack manufacturers, ,, whereas it is a well-known and promising strategy to boost the MIEC cathode’s ionic conductivity with additions of CGO electrolyte material, yielding particularly low polarization resistances and still showing good matching of the chemical and physical properties with other cell components. ,, For these reasons, the LSCF-CGO composite is chosen as the electrode material for the cathode side.…”

Comparison of different infiltration amounts of CeO2 inside Ni-YSZ anodes to improve stability and efficiency of Single-Chamber SOFCs operating in methane

“…Single Chamber Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SC-SOFCs) represent a particular branch of SOFCs technologies that aims to overcome the main flows of the dual chamber devices, mainly due to the sealing, that makes the device design more complex and make it hard to be employed for portable applications [1]. Some of the greatest benefits of single chamber SOFCs are the easier fabrication, the great potential for miniaturization, the easier preparation of a stack assembly and the presence of exothermic reactions to sustain the cell temperature [2,3].…”