Development of Highly Robust, Volume-Manufacturable Metal-Supported SOFCs for Operation Below 600

• Published in: ECS transactions Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 351 - 367
• Main Authors: Leah, Robert T., Bone, Adam, Selcuk, Ahmet, Corcoran, Derek, Lankin, Mike, Dehaney-Steven, Zachary, Selby, Mark, Whalen, Phil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 25.04.2011
• ISSN: 1938-5862; 1938-6737
• DOI: 10.1149/1.3570010

Ceres Power has been developing fuel cell stacks and mCHP systems based on its unique metal-supported SOFC design incorporating a Gadolinia-doped ceria (CGO) electrolyte operating in the 450-600°C temperature range. The present generation of cells being manufactured are designed to meet the commercial requirements for a wall mounted, natural gas fuelled mCHP product, producing an average of 140mWcm-2 at 0.75V/cell at 570°C and 60% fuel utilization, operating on steam-reformed natural gas. Open-circuit voltages are around 1.10V operating on hydrogen/nitrogen; close to theoretical values indicating the effective suppression of internal short-circuits. The unique metal supported design facilitates simple and robust hermetic sealing of the cell to the interconnect by welding, and layer-to layer sealing and isolation is achieved using a commercial gasket material, thus largely eliminating degradation due to thermal stress induced seal leakage found in conventional planar SOFC designs.