Despite enormous advantages of high efficiency and fuel flexibility, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have seen limited development in mobile, including aerospace, application areas. On the technical front, this condition has been primarily driven by the low specific power density of SOFCs, typically less than 0.5 kW/kg. On the manufacturing front, limitations have been related to catalyst infiltration and a very slow manufacturing process specific to the cell architectures capable of very high specific power densities. This project will overcome these problems with the hybridization of additive manufacturing and a proprietary process to enable manufacturing viability of a demonstrated, superior cell architecture on a commercial scale. A critical innovation enabling this process will be demonstrating the capacity to co-sinter an entire SOFC in a single thermal treatment. Phase I work will produce prototype SOFCs based on the hybridized manufacturing process and will provide preliminary electrochemical data. A significant portion of the effort will be focused on tailoring the hybridized additive manufacturing approach to yield anode and cathode microstructures which have integrated gas flow channels as a critical component of the high specific power density. The second development thrust of this work will demonstrate co-sintering of the anode, cathode, and electrolyte in a single step. Phase II efforts will subsequently further optimize the process, further characterize cell performance and longevity, and transition the process to the production environment. This manufacturing process will allow economical manufacture of high specific power density SOFCs with potential application as auxiliary power sources for commercial aircraft, automotive power sources, remote power generation, or primary power sources for light aircraft. The proposed work will enable these end uses in two ways. First, it will commercially enable a SOFC architecture that has already been demonstrated and proven to have key advantages over other types of fuel cells including high specific power density and fuel flexibility, but cannot currently be manufactured beyond the laboratory scale. Second, it will demonstrate a means of reduced manufacturing costs for all types of SOFCs and particularly demonstrate single-step co-sintering of a complete cell.
