Progress in Metal-Supported Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Kurzfassung

Solid oxide fuel cells have been developed for many years and continuous improvement in materials, cell design and manufacturing processes have been made resulting in a high technical standard. But successful commercialisation of traditional SOFC technology has not been achieved so far. In recent years alternative metal-supported SOFC designs (MS-SOFC) have attracted high interest driven by their low materials cost, ruggedness, tolerance to rapid thermal and redox cycling, and manufacturability benefits, showing significant advantages over conventional ceramic cells. The presentation provides an overview of the metal-supported SOFC developments including manufacturing strategies, materials for cell components and functional layers and technical achievements. The choice of the metal support for cell manufacturing is of eminent importance; requirements and candidate materials are outlined. Advantages of the metal-supported cell concept are emphasized and the different cell designs and manufacturing processes of different developers including both thermal spray and sintering techniques are reported. The current status of development including electrochemical performance data of some MS-SOFC developments is summarized.