Ultra-High Power Density Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Stack for High Efficiency Propulsion and Power Systems

In this proposed SBIR project, NexTech Materials will design, develop, and validate a high power density and sulfur tolerant solid oxide fuel cell stack for operation on military logistic fuels, leveraging its established sulfur tolerant stack technology platform. The starting point for work in Phase I will be NexTech"s 2-kW scale stack platform, with validated weight reduction approaches incorporated into its design. Additional identified lightweighting approaches will be validated by modeling and short stack testing to reduce the weight of the 2 kW stack to less than four kilograms while maintaining electrical efficiency of at least 40 percent. Work planned for Phase II includes fabrication and testing of higher performance cell designs to further reduce weight and increase efficiency, optimization of the lightweight stack component designs established in Phase I, fabrication and testing of lightweight 2-kW stacks, and delivery of a lightweight stack for testing and evaluation. Successful execution of this project will provide enabling capability for a number of high value military power applications, spanning the range of 500 watts to well over 10 kW in scale.