Atmospheric Plasma Spray Processing of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

该项目将开发一种快速、易于自动化的固体氧化物燃料电池(SOFC)制造方法，以实现清洁、高效的发电。将开发一种基于空气中等离子喷涂的连续工艺的制造技术，该工艺很容易扩展到大规模生产。这项工作有可能将制造固体氧化物燃料电池的加工时间从3天大幅减少到3分钟-这是一项重大突破，将使SOFC更接近广泛的商业化。该研究项目还有可能通过等离子喷涂工艺优化SOFC的微观结构，从而在提高SOFC性能方面取得更多突破，这是目前生产燃料电池最广泛使用的传统湿法化学路线无法实现的。这些对SOFC微结构的改进包括具有梯度成分的电极以提高热应力的耐受性，以及梯度孔隙率和颗粒尺寸以提高效率。这些改进的微结构将反过来提高燃料电池的寿命、可靠性和性能，以及处理成本。燃料电池技术的更快商业化将为加拿大工业创造机会，使其受益于由此扩大的全球市场，并将因此而改善空气质量和公共呼吸道健康，从而造福加拿大和世界各地的公众。它还将延长全球可用化石燃料储备有限供应的寿命，并通过使分布式发电变得更加可行来提高能源安全。气候变化的影响，特别是对沿海地区的影响也将减少。这里提出的研究有可能为实现加拿大经济的巨大利益做出重大贡献，并为加拿大和世界各地的公众创造巨大的环境和健康利益。

The project will develop a method for the rapid and easily-automated manufacture of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) for clean, efficient power generation. A manufacturing technique will be developed based on a continuous process of plasma spraying in air that is easily scalable for mass production. This work has the potential to drastically reduce the processing time for manufacture of solid oxide fuel cells from 3 days to 3 minutes - a significant breakthrough that will bring SOFCs closer to widespread commercialization. The research project also has the potential to lead to additional breakthroughs in improved performance of SOFCs through optimization of their microstructures by plasma spray processing in ways that are extremely difficult or impossible to accomplish using the traditional wet chemical routes that are currently most widely used to produce the fuel cells. These improvements to SOFC microstructures include electrodes with graded compositions to improve resistance to thermal stresses, and graded porosity and particle sizes to improve efficiency. These improved microstructures would in turn lead to improvements in lifetime, reliability, and performance of the fuel cells, as well as in processing cost. More rapid commercialization of fuel cell technology will create opportunities for Canadian industry to benefit from resulting expanded worldwide markets, and will benefit the Canadian and worldwide public with the resulting improvements to air quality and public respiratory health. It would also extend the lifetime of the limited supply of fossil fuel reserves available worldwide, and would increase energy security by making distributed generation more feasible. The impacts of climate change, particularly on coastal areas, would also be reduced. The research proposed herein has the potential to contribute significantly to the realization of great benefits not only to the Canadian economy, but also to create tremendous environmental and health benefits for the Canadian and worldwide public.