Current SOFC R&D activities at CNR-ITAE

The major energy demand is presently fulfilled by conventional energy resources like petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Petroleum-based fuels are characterized by limited reserves concentrated in certain regions of the world. Thus, the most feasible way to meet the growing demand of energy is to utilize alternative fuels that can be obtained from renewable sources including those derived from biomasses. One of the main implications is consumer's ability to use an increasingly diverse selection of energy sources. New business models could be especially important in the stationary power sector as fuel cell based distributed energy systems become an alternative to or backup for centrally generated power. The European strategy in Energy Systems will improve the efficiency of traditional energy systems and will spread the diffusion of new sustainable energy technologies, and will have therefore an important impact on: European economy; improvement of European companies' competitiveness in high-tech global markets, dependency of the EU from external supply of oil and energy. Small fuel cells systems, typically less than 10kW, are under consideration for many applications that traditional electric utilities have not supplied widely. In this area, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) may enable new companies to enter the power-generation business as equipment providers or heat and electricity providers. The CNR-ITAE has a long and proven experience in SOFCs having contributed to the penetration of this technology into Europe since the early 1980's. In this communication will be reported the CNR-ITAE experience in the electrochemical screening of SOFC components under practical operating conditions, electrochemical process optimization on a small scale, and ex-situ physico-chemical characterization of the SOFC cells after operation.