Current Status of Fabrication of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells for Emission-Free Energy Conversion

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are promising energy conversion devices due to their environment friendly operation with relatively high efficiencies (\u3e60 %). High power densities and stability upon interruption of fuel supply are required to realize the applications of the SOFC technology. The two main approaches for SOFC fabrication, namely; co-sintering of powders and infiltration of catalytically active components into porous scaffolds are described. It is stressed that the fabrication technique determines the performance of the SOFCs. Co-sintering of powders allow achieving high power densities while infiltration technique yields SOFC that show no performance degradation upon fuel interruption