Design of industrially scalable microtubular solid oxide fuel cells based on an extruded support

The current work describes the adaptation of an existing lab-scale cell production method for an anode supported microtubular solid oxide fuel cell to an industrially ready and easily scalable method using extruded supports. For this purpose, Ni-YSZ (yttria stabilized zirconia) anode is firstly manufactured by Powder Extrusion Moulding (PEM). Feedstock composition, extruding parameters and binder removal procedure are adapted to obtain the tubular supports. The final conditions for this process were: feedstock solid load of 65 vol%; a combination of solvent debinding in heptane and thermal debinding at 600 degrees C. Subsequently, the YSZ electrolyte layer is deposited by dip coating and the sintering parameters are optimized to achieve a dense layer at 1500 degrees C during 2 h. For the cathode, an LSM (lanthanum strontium manganite)-YSZ layer with an active area of similar to 1 cm(2) is deposited by dip coating. Finally, the electrochemical performance of the cell is measured using pure humidified hydrogen as fuel. The measured power density of the cell at 0.5 V was 0.7 W cm(-2) at 850 degrees C. Copyright (C) 2014, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.