SOFC Components Production – An Interesting Challenge for DC- and RF-Plasma Spraying

Abstract

Abstract Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) are expected to gain a high importance as direct converters for transforming chemical into electrical energy. They have the potential of working with considerably higher efficiency and much less environmental problems compared to systems used so far. SOFCs of present technology operate at temperatures in the range of 950 °C. Besides an increase in performance and stability, a main precondition for a technical breakthrough of SOFCs is a drastic reduction of their production costs. Approaches are the use of less-expensive materials, new SOFC designs with thinner components and the improvement of presently applied production routes, or their replacement by other techniques such as thermal spray methods. DC- and RF-VPS show very attractive properties particularly if the cell will be manufactured in one consecutive combined process. The state of SOFC spray design will be described together with results of the process adaptation and the SOFC components development.