Glass-ceramic sealant for solid oxide fuel cells application: Characterization and performance in dual atmosphere

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: A. G. Sabato, G. Tempura, D. Montinaro, A. Chysanthou, M. Salvo, E. Bernardo, M. Secco, F. Meacetto, ‘Glass-ceramic sealant for solid oxide fuel cells application: characterization and performance in dual atmosphere’, Journal of Power Sources, Vol. 328:262-270, October 2016, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2016.08.010. Published by Elsevier. This manuscript version is distributed distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License CC BY NC-ND 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.Glass-ceramic composition was designed and tested for use as a sealant in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) planar stack design. The crystallization behaviour was investigated by calculating the Avrami parameter (n) and the activation energy for crystallization (Ec) was obtained. The calculated values for n and Ec were 3 and 413.5 kJ/mol respectively. The results of thermal analyses indicate that this composition shows no overlap between the sintering and crystallization stages and thus an almost pore-free sealant can be deposited and sintered at 850 °C in air for 30 min. A gas tightness test has been carried out at 800 °C for 1100 h in dual atmosphere (Ar-H2 and air) without recording any leakage. Morphological and crystalline phase analyses were conducted prior and following tests in dual atmospheres in order to assess the compatibility of the proposed sealant with the metallic interconnect.Peer reviewe

Why do Countries Enter into Preferential Agreements on Trade in Services? Assessing the Potential for Negotiated Regulatory Convergence in Asian Services Markets

More than a third of the World Trade Organization (WTO)-notified services trade agreements (STAs) in effect over January 2008 - August 2015 have involved at least one (South or Southeast) Asian trading partner. Drawing on Baier and Bergstrand's (2004) determinants of preferential trade agreements and using the World Bank's database on the restrictiveness of domestic services regimes (Borchert et.al. 2012), we examine the potential for negotiated regulatory convergence in Asian services markets. Our results suggest that countries within Asia with high levels of pre-existing bilateral merchandise trade and wide differences in services regulatory frameworks are more likely candidates for STA formation. Such results lend support to the hypothesis that the heightened "servicification" of production generates a demand for the lowered service input costs resulting from negotiated market opening