Investigation of Ni-coated-steel-meshes as alternative anode contact material to nickel in an SOFC stack

Solid oxide fuel cell is a promising technology to convert renewable energy sources to electricity electrochemically at high efficiencies, thus an important applied research topic worldwide. The in-house developed so-called F-stack-design aims at stationary applications and can achieve a very long lifetime. However, since production costs should be reduced, one research focus lies on finding suitable less expensive materials. Therefore, alternatives for the benchmark Ni-mesh as anode contacting element in the stack were studied. Several types of Ni-coated-steels were tested in a stack. After 3000 h of operation the different anode contact materials are compared with the Ni-mesh in terms of microstructure as well as chemical composition. A discussion of the results is given

Site-selective time resolved laser fluorescence spectroscopy of Eu and Cm dopted LaPO4

Samples of LaPO4 doped with Eu3+ or Cm3+ were synthesized by a hydrothermal process which resulted in a solid solution at temperatures less than conventional processing. Time resolved laser fluorescence spectroscopy was used to probe the incorporated Eu3+ or Cm3+ in order to gain structural information on its local environment. This revealed that Eu3+ and Cm3+ incorporate on the La site as expected. The emission spectrum of Eu3+ resolves the fully degenerate 5-fold splitting of the peaks in the F-2 transition due to the low symmetry of the site, confirming previous calculations. A minor site in the Eu3+ doped sample is identified as coordinated with hydroxide contamination. Direct excitation of Cm3+ doped samples show the presence of "satellite" species. Although these spectral features have been observed in Cm3+ doped LuPO4 and YPO4, this is the first time that these satellites are resolved into their individual species. These are hypothesized to be due to a disturbance in the ideal structure which creates a break in the equivalence of the four lanthanum sites within a unit cell. The 4-fold ground state splitting of all species is identical, although slightly shifted, indicating similar environments. The fluorescence lifetimes were long (1.2 ms for Cm and 3.6 ms for Eu) indicating an absence of water in the immediate coordination sphere due to the incorporation of the doping ion

Preparation and thermomechanical characterisation of aluminum titanate flexible ceramics

International audienceFlexible ceramics may be useful, for example to process refractory materials with an improved resistance to thermal shocks. A natural flexible sandstone, itacolumite, is mainly constituted of interlocked quartz grains and contains microcracks. Its microstructure allows some free motion between grains that induces its flexibility. The aim of this study is to prepare and characterize flexible aluminum titanate ceramics by mimicking the microstructure of itacolumite. Aluminum titanate (AT) has a high thermal expansion anisotropy that induces grain boundary microcracking leading to flexibility. Here, the flexibility is the capacity of the material to endorse large strain-to-rupture level. This concept is also closely related to a low value of the stiffness induced by damage mechanisms. In this study, the flexibility has been estimated by the measurement of the deflection at fracture on three-point bending test. By preparing AT samples sintered according to different heating cycles, the correlations between the sintering cycle, the microstructure and the flexibility have been studied. Grain size and microcrack width have been observed by scanning electron microscopy. A major parameter for flexibility is the microcrack volume fraction within the sample. Three types of AT materials have been processed: non flexible (NF), flexible (F), and very flexible (VF). Their thermal and mechanical behaviors have been investigated and showed that NF has a brittle behavior while F and VF have a nonlinear ductile one. This was found to be due to grain boundary microcracks network and to the interlocking of grains. VF is more flexible than F because its microcracks are wider. Flexibility improves the thermal shock resistance: F and VF have a higher thermal shock resistance than NF. Moreover, thermal expansion measurements during thermal cycles showed anomalous effects induced by crack closure when heating and crack opening when cooling