Atmospheric Plasma Spray Processing of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

该项目将开发一种快速、容易自动化制造固体氧化物燃料电池（sofc）的方法，用于清洁、高效的发电。将开发一种基于空气中连续等离子喷涂过程的制造技术，该技术易于大规模生产。这项工作有可能将固体氧化物燃料电池的制造时间从3天大幅减少到3分钟，这是一个重大突破，将使sofc更接近广泛的商业化。该研究项目也有可能通过等离子喷涂工艺优化sofc的微观结构，从而在改善sofc性能方面取得额外的突破，而目前最广泛用于生产燃料电池的传统湿化学工艺很难或不可能实现这一目标。SOFC微结构的改进包括采用梯度成分的电极，以提高对热应力的抵抗力，以及梯度孔隙度和颗粒尺寸，以提高效率。这些改进的微观结构将反过来改善燃料电池的使用寿命、可靠性和性能，以及加工成本。燃料电池技术更迅速的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，并将使加拿大和全世界公众受益于由此改善的空气质量和公众呼吸健康。它还将延长全球有限的化石燃料储备的使用寿命，并通过使分布式发电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，也会减少。本文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，而且为加拿大和全世界公众创造巨大的环境和健康效益。

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.