Status of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Development at Elcogen

Elcogen is a manufacturer of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) unit cells and stacks. The competitive advantage of Elcogen products is their performance characteristics at reduced temperatures. The unit cell structure is optimized for operating temperatures 600 – 700°C and is made of a material system from anode to cathode of NiO/YSZ – YSZ – GDC – LSC.  Elcogen tailors the unit cells with different thicknesses and shapes according to the customer requirements. Elcogen stacks are optimized for stationary applications in which both the operation temperature and pressure drop can be reduced due to stack characteristics enabling cost savings because of reduced material costs both in stack and system level, and increased system efficiencies due to reduced air compression losses and enhanced Nernst potential.

The article describes the performance characteristics of Elcogen unit cells and stacks. As an example, the area specific resistance of the unit cells has been determined to be 0.17 Ω.cm² at 700°C, U_fuel = U_air = 20%, and the degradation rate below 5 mΩ.cm².kh^-1 in 10,000 hours test. The average stack voltage is measured to be 0.97V at 30A, T_ave = 700°C, and V_air = 2.2 and V_H2 = 1.0 l_N/min/cell. The pressure drop for the air and fuel at the same conditions is less than 5mbar. With the encoring technical results and customer feedback, Elcogen is constantly increasing its unit cell and stack production capacity.