Corrosion.and.Protection.of.Metallic.Interconnects.in.Solid- Oxide.Fuel.Cells

Abstract

Energy security and increased concern over environmental protection have spurred a dramatic world-wide growth in research and development of fuel cells, which electrochemically convert incoming fuel into electricity with no or low pollution. Fuel cell technology has become increasingly attractive to a number of sectors, including utility, automotive, and defense industries. Among the various types of fuel cells, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) operate at high temperature (typically 650-1,000 C) and have advantages in terms of high conversion efficiency and the flexibility of using hydrocarbon fuels, in addition to hydrogen. The high temperature operation, however, can lead to increased mass transport and interactions between the surrounding environment and components that are required to be stable during a lifetime of thousands of hours and up to hundreds of thermal cycles. For stacks with relatively low operating temperatures (<800 C), the interconnects that are used to electrically connect a number of cells in series are typically made from cost-effective metals or alloys. The metallic interconnects must demonstrate excellent stability in a very challenging environment during SOFC operation, as they are simultaneously exposed to both an oxidizing (air) environment on the cathode side and a reducing environment (hydrogen or a reformed hydrocarbon fuel)more » on the anode side. Other challenges include the fact that water vapor is likely to be present in both of these environments, and the fuel is likely to contain impurities, such as sulfides. Since the fuel is usually a reformed hydrocarbon fuel, such as natural gas, coal gas, biogas, gasoline, etc., the interconnect is exposed to a wet carbonaceous environment at the anode side. Finally, the interconnect must be stable towards any adjacent components, such as electrodes, seals and electrical contact materials, with which it is in physical contact.« less