This talk will provide an overview of performance and durability of metal-supported solid oxide fuel cell technology developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The unique LBNL symmetric cell architecture design, with thin ceramic backbones and electrolyte sandwiched between porous metal supports, offers a number of advantages over conventional all-ceramic cells, including low-cost structural materials (e.g. stainless steel), mechanical ruggedness, excellent tolerance to redox cycling, and extremely fast start-up capability. The metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells (MS-SOFCs) achieve power density of &gt;1.5 W/cm2 at 700 °C and ≥2.8 W/cm2 at 800 °C when fueled with 3% humidified hydrogen, record performance for stainless steel MS-SOFCs. Cathode catalyst coarsening and chromium poisoning from the stainless steel were determined to be primary degradation mechanisms. New approaches to mitigate these degradation modes, resulting in two orders of magnitude improvement in the degradation rate will be discussed. The achieved degradation rate of 2.3% kh-1 is within a reach of targets for vehicular applications. Catalyst pre-coarsening and other techniques used to improve durability will be presented. The state-of-the art MS-SOFCs have also been operated with liquid hydrocarbon fuels including ethanol, ethanol/water blend, and simulated E85, resembling vehicular operation.

Progress in metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells: Performance and durability

2019 Fall National Meeting

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