Recent developments in SOFC/SOEC materials and design at GJL

Solid oxide Fuel Cells are approaching commercial exploitation thanks to joint efforts by research institutions and industries. Such a combination profits from scientific advancements in materials design and optimization. At the moment, research is targeting the recognized limitation of SOFC, basically consisting in excessive performance degradation over the expected lifetime of devices. Several innovations have been explored to overcome such limitation by reducing operating temperature and improving stability of materials. This is a review of recent advances in SOFC materials and cells design which have been developed at the Genoa Joint Laboratories (GJL) mainly under the EU-FP7 programme. IDEAL-Cell (FET) The junction of the anodic compartment of a protonic cell with the cathodic compartment of an anionic one results in a so-called Dual Cell [1]. In this design water vapor is not diluting reacting gases, which is favorable in terms of efficiency and resistance to corrosion of metallic interconnects. In addition, dual cells proved to be well suited to operate in reverse mode as electrolysis cell, without need to change gas composition in electrodes compartments. ENDURANCE (FCH-JU) Failure in a SOFC stack is mostly related to reactions taking place at interfaces, involving glass sealing, metallic interconnects and active ceramic layers (see fig. 2). Ex-situ investigation under realistic conditions [2] on micro samples allows to detect degradation phenomena at early stages which can be used both to refine aging models and elaborate counteractions. References 1.A. S. Thorel, J. Abreu, A. Ansar, A. Barbucci, T. Brylewski, A. Chesnaud, et al., J. Electrochem. Soc. 2013, 160, F360-F366. 2.P. Piccardo, S. Fontana, M. Sennour, R. Amendola, M. Viviani, et al., EFCF-2011, 2011, B10 42-52.