2R-Cell{trade mark, serif}: Reliability of Anode Supported Thin Electrolyte Upon Multi Thermo and Redox Cycles

Abstract

Because of their high power density in a wide range of temperature, anode supported thin film electrolytes are nowadays the mostly used cells in the SOFC area. Unfortunately, the latter suffer from an important problem that remained unsolved till today: they are totally destroyed when re-oxidation occurs in the anode chamber. This happens, for instance when fuel supply inappropriately stops. Cell peripheral re-oxidation is another well known figure where failures are initiated. In all cases, when re-oxidation starts, the stack quickly undergoes a fatal destruction and the SOFC system definitely falls down. Fiaxell Sàrl, a new company active in the SOFC area has developed a novel anode supported thin electrolyte, the 2R-Cell{trade mark, serif} that provides robustness and reliability upon multi thermo and redox-cycles. Such cells have now demonstrated for thousands of cumulated hours that they withstand full redox-cycles without any failure in the anode substrate neither in the thin electrolyte.