Low Cost Materials, Designs, and Manufacturing Processes for Robust Tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC)

New power systems are needed for U.S. Army vehicles, to enhance fuel efficiency and reduce reliance on the fuel supply train. Solid-oxide fuel cell systems provide compelling advantages in fuel efficiency, fuel flexibility and fuel impurity tolerance. The same fuel efficiency advantages provided to military applications, when extended to commercial vehicles, would have an enormous impact on fossil fuel consumption, pollution emissions, and transportation costs for the next century. Developmental programs are in place, but require new materials and new fabrication processes to achieve manufacturing cost and performance targets. Phase I of this program demonstrated a low-cost, highly tailorable manufacturing technique for the cathode support tube a major component of the tubular SOFC cells. Materials development was also pursued, to enhance cell performance. In Phase II, the processing study will be extended to the remaining layers of the cell, including the electrolyte, anode, and interconnect. Spray deposition processes will be used to apply these layers in a materials-flexible, low-cost, scalable approach. The spray deposition approaches will allow a range of materials to be evaluated and substituted to achieve optimized cell performance. The integration of multiple coating steps will also reduce manufacturing costs and time.