The whole project duration was 3 years. Executing the project allowed Elcogen to develop a detailed scale-up plan for mass production of solid oxide cells with enhanced power output and lifetime, at the same time considerably reducing the manufacturing cost of a single cell. Based on the project’s goals and its structure, 4 specific objectives were identified as targets to be reached at the end of the project.
1) Development of thinner cell design.
The new cell generation has been developed in order to reduce amount of raw materials compared to the previous generations, but also to increase its manufacturing speed. As a result, thinner cell with optimised microstructure shows 40% reduction in raw materials, is more than 2 times stronger mechanically, and also has higher electrochemical performance with no diffusion limitations even at high current density and fuel utilisation.
Also, a completely new approach was investigated for future factory with unique manufacturing technique applying ecological water-based compositions at single step co-casting machine, showing promising results in terms of quality and scalability.
2) Increasing the power density of a cell, with a particular focus on development of an innovative ALD deposition process to be applied for a barrier layer production.
The main goal of the specific objective is to optimise cells for operation at higher power density, and implement ALD process for barrier layer at industrial scale was one of the main tasks to achieve it. It improves electrochemical performance of single cell and increase durability for longer lifetime. Moreover, optimized ALD process reduces raw material consumption and decreases overall cell manufacturing time. Experimental cells with ALD nanolayer showed very high efficiency starting already at 600 ˚C, with much smaller area specific resistance. No defects, delamination, cracks, zirconate deposition or other defects were observed after fuel cell production with this type of barrier when using a large scale industrial ALD equipment. But even without ALD process, improved Elcogen solid oxide cells have been already tested and validated at operation going up to 1.56 W/cm2, showing potential to be used already today in different kind of applications.
3) Performing analysis and factory design for production scale-up.
In order to ramp up manufacturing process up to 2 million cells a year, Elcogen started a thorough analysis of current manufacturing method to identify the main problems and bottlenecks. Based on this study, the design of the new factory has been initiated, together with testing and validation of new equipment and processes to be used in the new factory.
This work is performed by Elcogen in tight collaboration with the best industrial equipment manufacturer partners to design automated production line while keeping extremely high quality of the product and total yield above 95%.
4) Carrying out pilot testing and preparing commercialisation.
The work was focused on pilot testing of new cells and commercialisation plan for the next years. This task was fulfilled together with strategic partners to validate optimised cells on system level. For that, several pilot projects have been selected and supported by Elcogen to prove high efficiency and low degradation level of cells. The projects covered the main areas of application: starting from fuel cell mode using natural gas and biogas, and going to hydrogen production in electrolysis mode or even using the cells for reversible operation. The results were disseminated to the public to show performance and robustness of Elcogen’s products, but also to prove a huge potential and competitiveness of the solid oxide cell technology.
