NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN VACUUM PLASMA SPRAYING OF INSULATING AND SEALING LAYERS FOR SOFC

Kurzfassung

The potential of metal supported high temperature solid oxide fuel cells (MS-SOFC) as power supply is undoubtedly high. Attributes like high efficient and environmental friendly conversion of different fuels from chemical to thermo-electrical energy and an excellent stability concerning red-ox and thermal cycling make them, in particular, an interesting candidate for mobile applications (e.g. as auxiliary power unit (APU) in vehicles or aircrafts). APU requires low weight and accordingly a high power to weight ratio. On this account plasma spraying provides the opportunity to be used in different areas of application in SOFC fabrication. Besides functional layers (electrodes, electrolyte) insulating and sealing coatings to assemble single MS- SOFC units to stacks can be made by thermal spraying. Current studies and new developments of the latter will be presented in this paper.