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7146 |
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Friday, May 06, 2022, Hall -2.32/33 11:40 AM Renewable Power Generation |
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A decade of development, optimization and scale up of a thin barrier layer for metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells |
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Luc Leblanc* / Cummins Inc., United States of America Ryan Hinckley / Cummins Enterprise, USA Matthew Alinger/ Cummins Enterprise, USA Todd Striker/ Cummins Enterprise, USA |
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A solid oxide fuel cell is an electrochemical conversion device that produces electricity directly from oxidizing a fuel. It involves ionic transport and electrochemical reactions where electrolyte and electrode properties play a major role in performance, along with a range of complementary materials that need to ensure equally relevant functions across the cell. The lifetime of such functional materials is expected to reach many thousands of hours with minimal degradation. This presentation is centered around the process development, optimization and scale up of a thin plasma sprayed ceramic barrier layer to mitigate long-term performance degradation of metal-supported SOFCs. The evolution from the proof of concept in a laboratory environment, to the scale up toward large scale manufacturing production is discussed. The challenges associated with minimizing application time and lowering cost while maintaining high coating performance at high yields are discussed. Empirical observations such as microstructural analysis and in-flight particle monitoring were used to gain understanding of the process and guide its development, as well as establish feedstock material specifications and plasma gun and hardware selection. Results show how this effort has led to the reduction of the coating deposition time by a factor of more than 15, while reducing its cost substantially over the last decade, enabling large-scale manufacturing at high yield. |