A New Technology for Spraying Advanced Low-Temperature (300 ~ 600 °C) Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has been developed for a hundred year and met a great challenge on material design and marketing. In recent years, new SOFC materials are dug up to achieve high energy-output performance at lower working temperature (300~600 °C), namely low-temperature SOFC (LTSOFC). In this study, Ni-Co-Al-Li oxide (NCAL) was used for making dense, thin and uniform coatings on grooved bipolar electrode substrate for LTSOFC. Low-pressure plasma spray (LPPS) technology was applied to manufacture the NCAL coatings. The performance of a fuel cell package using the coated bipolars was tested between 350 and 600 °C, showing 6~8 W power output with 4 single fuel cells (active area of 25 cm²). The LPPS technology is believed to be one of the ultimate ways for manufacturing the thin film/coatings for SOFC applications in future.