NIMTE developes the highest flexural strength SOFC cells

Fuel Cell & Energy Technology Division (FCET) (www.sofcman.com) of Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering (NIMTE), Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) established the first pilot production line of planar SOFC single cells with annual capacity of 20,000 pcs in China. The single cells with effective area of 10×10cm2-15×15cm2 were sold to companies or institutes from Denmark, Switzerland, UK, US, Japan, Singapore, and China Taiwan. The single cells with effective areas of 10×10cm2 have maximum power output of 90W per cell at 850ºC and 50W at 750ºC. Power and power density is one of the most important parameters to fuel cells, the properties of the strength of a cell holds the same importance in the real operational conditions. In a stack building and operation processes, a high flexural strength is essential to avoid performance degradation even failure caused by emerging cracks of single cells under pressure. NIMTE made a special kind of SOFC anode support (NiO+YSZ) by doping 0.25wt%Al2O3, which shows the highest flexural strength reported as we know. The average flexural strength of the anode supports (NiO+YSZ) before reduction is 430MPa in average values, which is much higher than the anode supports of 201MPa without doping. There is a 114% improvement in comparison between doped anode supports and without doped ones. The flexural strength of the doped anode supports after reduction is 299MPa, which is also higher in contrast with that of un-doped anode supports of 237MPa. On the other hand, the single cells prepared by doped anode support (NiO+YSZ) have shown the same electrical properties as these of single cells without doping. This work “Alumina Doped Ni/YSZ Anode Materials for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells” has been accepted and will be published in Fuel Cells (DOI: 10.1002/fuce.200800152).