Solid Oxide Fuel Cell, Stack and System Development Status at Forschungszentrum Jülich

Based on more than 20 years of scientific development, Forschungszentrum Jülich is still continuously improving its SOFC technology. Based on a warm pressing process, anode supported cells have been tested in stack sizes up to 5 kW. Recent cell developments focused on tape-casting and sequential tape-casting. The enhanced thermo-mechanical robustness of stacks in the kW range was demonstrated by successfully cycling 100 times between 200 and 700 °C. To be able to utilize also anode supported cells from other manufacturers, the design was modified to a window frame layout, integrating four 10×10 cm² cells in one layer. A 20 kW system was operated for about 7000 hours in total, demonstrating thereby the suitability of the module and system concept developed in JÜLICH. As special highlights, long-term tests with short stacks have now reached operation times of 65,200 h and 34,500 h, respectively. As relatively new subject the activities in high temperature electrolysis are briefly outlined.</jats:p

SOFC Stack and System Development at Forschungszentrum Jülich

Long-term stable and robust stack technology is a pre-requisite for a successful implementation of SOFC in the market and so it is one of the main issues in SOFC development. Also bigger stacks are desirable for systems with increased power output. Progress in stack and systems development is illustrated. Enhanced thermo-mechanical robustness of stacks in the kW range was demonstrated by successfully cycling a five layer stack incorporating cells of 20 × 20 cm² 100 times between 200 and 700°C. Aiming at the utilization of anode-supported cells from other manufacturers, the design was modified to a window frame layout, integrating in this case four 10 × 10 cm² cells in one layer. A 20 kW system was operated for about 7000 hours in total, thereby demonstrating the suitability of the module and system concept. As special highlights, long-term tests with short stacks have now reached operation times of 66,500 h and 34,500 h, respectively. As a relatively new subject, activities entailed by high temperature electrolysis are briefly outlined

Overview on the Jülich SOFC Development Status

The SOFC group at JÜLICH works on the development of materials, cell and stack since the early 90s, strongly supported by post-operational analysis. Important achievements are e.g. the development of ferritic chromium steels which are now commercially available and anode substrate cells with power densities exceeding 2 W/cm² at 0.7 V and 700 °C. Special highlights are long term tests with short stacks of which one has reached 50,000 h of continuous operation. In the year 2000 also systems and system components development has been started. In 2012 a 20 kW system, based on four 5 kW stacks, was successfully set into operation. The envisaged 20 kW were achieved and the system has been operated for about 4,000 h up to now.</jats:p

Modeling the water splitting activity of a TiO&lt;inf&gt;2&lt;/inf&gt; rutile nanoparticle

© 2015 American Chemical Society. We explore, from a theoretical perspective, the effect of particle size on the photocatalytic water splitting activity of TiO 2 rutile (nano)particles by a combination of explicit quantum chemistry calculations on a hydroxylated rutile nanoparticle in a realistic solvation environment and a comparison with the calculated properties of bulk rutile (surfaces) from the literature. Specifically, we use density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT to calculate the nanoparticle thermodynamic driving force for the water splitting half-reactions and identify in the process the crucial role of self-trapping of the free charge carriers responsible for proton reduction and water oxidation