High Power Density Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Systems

Adaptive Energy (AE) is a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) development and manufacturing company focused on providing reliable, robust, and cost-effective SOFC products at the 100-500W power output range.  Due to the usage of microtubular SOFC cells (6.6mm diameter tubes) in these products, AE’s SOFCs avoid the traditional pitfalls of larger SOFC systems – mainly sealing and thermal cycling.  The AE commercial 250W battery tending SOFC system (TRL9) is capable of 250 complete thermal cycles and 3,000 hours of endurance performance.  AE also has a significant market presence in the unmanned aerial power market with a 500W (peak) SOFC (TRL8). This power system has an industry-leading specific power of 181W/kg and density of 134W/L. AE is proposing to increase the state-of-the-art UAV SOFC power system density through three main tasks: increase cell performance by 2x, increase cell packing via size reduction to 4x, and decrease stack, thermal management, and Balance of Plant (BOP) subsystem volume by 3.25x.  The cumulative effects of these improvements should sufficiently deliver an SOFC technology that achieves the Phase II power density objectives without sacrificing the endurance capability (>100 cycles), the startup time metrics (< 30 minutes), or the fuel requirements (hydrocarbon fuels) for this program.