SBIR Phase I: Natural Gas Fueled Metal-Supported Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将确定使用直接天然气燃料高效运行创新金属支持的SOFC(固体氧化物燃料电池)的可行性，而不会产生过多的碳沉积。SOFC没有成功地商业化，因为它们太贵了，而且容易失败。点源电力正在寻求金属支持的SOFC，通过从根本上改善成本、性能、耐用性和制造，来克服这些问题。该项目旨在为发电市场提供金属支持的SOFC，为小型内燃机(ICE)发电提供高效的替代方案。这项研究的更广泛的商业影响是，基于金属支撑的SOFC的天然气燃料发电机组系统有望成功地满足小型发电机市场的需求，以销售量计算，小型发电机市场占总市场的74%。2009年，全球住宅市场销售了930万台发电机组，预计到2014年，美国住宅市场规模将接近12亿美元。基于ICE的小型发电机组可靠且相对便宜，但效率极低。小型发电机组的效率为15%，而小型燃料电池系统的效率为35%-45%。这种能效的大幅提高降低了运营/燃料成本，并降低了每千瓦时的二氧化碳、颗粒物、SOx和NOx排放量。例如，一台1kW汽油发电机以15%的效率运行1500小时，消耗约1100美元(273加仑)的汽油，而以40%的效率运行的燃料电池系统将消耗约125美元(5000立方英尺)。天然气。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will determine the feasibility of operating innovative metal-supported SOFCs (solid oxide fuel cells) on direct natural gas fuel at high efficiency and without excessive carbon deposition. SOFCs are not successfully commercialized because they are too expensive and prone to failure. Point Source Power is pursuing Metal-Supported SOFCs that will overcome these issues by radically improving cost, performance, durability, and manufacturing. This project aims to enable metal-supported SOFCs for the genset market, providing a high-efficiency alternative to small internal combustion engines (ICEs) for power generation. Metal-supported cells with various anode catalysts will be tested with natural gas fuel.The broader/commercial impacts of this research are that natural-gas fueled genset systems based on metal-supported SOFCs are expected to successfully address the needs of the small generator market, which comprises 74% of the total market based on units sold. In 2009, 9.3M genset units were sold globally for residential applications, and the US residential market is expected to approach $1.2B by 2014. Small ICE-based gensets are reliable and relatively inexpensive, but suffer from extremely low efficiency. Small gensets operate at 15% efficiency, whereas small fuel cell systems provide 35-45% efficiency. This large efficiency gain results in reduced operating/fuel costs and lower CO2, particulate, SOx and NOx emissions per kWh. For example, a 1kW gasoline powered generator running for 1500h at 15% efficiency consumes ~$1100 (273gal) of gasoline, whereas a fuel cell system running at 40% efficiency would consume ~$125 (5000 cu.ft.) of natural gas.