IDEAL-Cell, a High Temperature Innovative Dual mEmbrAne Fuel-Cell

Abstract

IDEAL-Cell is a new concept of a high temperature fuel cell operating in the range 600-700°C. It is based on the junction between the anode part of a PCFC and the cathode part of a SOFC through a mixed H+ and O2- conducting porous ceramic membrane. This concept, extensively described in the present paper, aims at avoiding all the severe pitfalls connected with the presence of water at the electrodes in both SOFC and PCFC concepts. Spark Plasma Sintering samples were designed specifically for proving the IDEAL-Cell concept. The first electrochemical results obtained at 600°C under hydrogen on millimeter thick samples show that IDEAL-Cell behaves like a high temperature fuel cell. It is estimated that the overall efficiency of this new concept should greatly surpass that of standard SOFCs and PCFCs and that the material constraints, especially in the case of interconnect materials, should significantly decrease

IDEAL-Cell, Innovative Dual mEmbrAne fueL-Cell: Fabrication and Electrochemical Testing of First Prototypes

“…BCY electrolytes with Pt electrodes were tested in humidified (3 wt.%) H 2 stream. The setup for PoC multilayers characterization is described in detail elsewhere (2). Table II reports the density values obtained by introducing different amounts of sintering aids.…”

“…A weak point, common to both configurations, is the dilution of reacting gases, at the anode side in SOFCs and at the cathode side in PCFCs. In order to overcome such limitations, an innovative cell architecture was proposed (2). The IDEAL-Cell concept is based on the joining of a PCFC anode/PCFC electrolyte part (anode compartment) with a SOFC electrolyte/SOFC cathode (cathode compartment), through a mixed H + and O 2-conducting porous ceramic central membrane (CM), made of a composite based on both PCFC and SOFC electrolytes and operating in the range 600-700°C.…”

“…Significant diminishing of the sintering temperature can be also obtained by Hot Pressing (HP) and Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), which allow the fabrication of dense finegrained ceramics and composite materials (7,8). In this work, various techniques were implemented to fabricate different dedicated samples or cell components, each having their own purpose in the framework of the IDEAL-Cell project; the samples were: Shaping procedures and microstructure analyses of all these samples and components are given in the following sections; the first electrochemical results on the PoC samples, as validation of the IDEAL-Cell concept, are reported elsewhere (2).…”

Electrical Properties of BaCeO3-Based Electrolytes for use in Dual Protonic Ceramic-Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

“…A schematic representation of this dual protonic ceramic-solid oxide fuel cell (PCFC-SOFC) is illustrated in Fig. 1 [18]. From this figure it follows that the device generates electrical energy by simultaneously conducting protons through the anode compartment and oxide ions through the cathode compartment.…”

“…(5) However, the key component of the PCFCs-SOFCs is the central membrane, which must exhibit significant ionic conductivity for both species (H + and O 2− ), allow the two species to meet and recombine, and have a sufficient amount of open porosity for easy H 2 O evacuation [18,21].…”