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Credit: Wachsman et al.; Energy & Environmental Science.

No.

Will it anyway? Unfortunately, it looks that way, based on the DOE’s 2012 budget request (pdf), which hacks off 41 percent of total SOFC funding from the current year budget, and would leave support at 65 percent of what it had in 2010. Moreover, it would cut off funding for the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance

The US policy of turning off its support for SOFC R&D seems to me to be a horrible and strategic error and I’d say that it’s time sound the alarm—but Eric Wachsman, Craig Marlowe and Kang Taek Lee beat me to it!

Wachsman et al. have a new paper in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Energy & Environmental Science journal that politely and intelligently flays the logic behind a federal policy that abandons SECA and technical leadership in this field to other nations, such as Japan and Germany, despite the substantial progress that SECA has been shepherding. The three authors are affiliated with the University of Maryland’s Energy Research Center. Wachsman is a member of ACerS and also serves as editor of Ionics.

It probably comes as no surprise to people in the materials field that SOFCs have an enormous future. As the authors note, “SOFCs have the highest potential efficiency for the conversion of fuel to electricity,” and are extremely fuel-flexible.

The authors continue to build their initial premise, writing,

“Recent progress in lowering operating temperature and power density improvements have made SOFCs a unique energy technology platform that offers stunning potential for electrical generation in not only centralized, but distributed and even mobile applications. Lowering operating temperatures reduces manufacturing costs, vastly simplifies the integration of balance of plant components and enables thermal cycling. Improved thermal cycling capabilities of low-temperature SOFCs would allow them to also play an important role in load following applications such as non-base-load electricity generation and transportation.”

So why would DOE walk away from SOFC technology now? (It should be noted that the DOE would shift most if not all of its support to proton exchange membrane fuel cells, aimed mostly at the transportation sector.) Wachsman et al. are baffled for a number of reasons, some of which I will attempt to capture here.

First, they hold up one of DOE’s main policy-making documents, its “Quadrennial Technology Review,” and compare its priorities with SOFC technology’s ability to deliver (see chart above). For example, the DOE lays out separate basic energy strategies for the “stationary” and “transport” marketplaces. Deployment of clean energy, grid modernization and improved building/factory efficiency are mentioned for the former; deployment of alternative fuels, fleet electrification and improved vehicle efficiency are identified for the latter. Sounds good, so far, the authors say, so SOFCs would seem to be able to be an important part of achieving all six of these strategies, if not a superior choice to the alternatives. “[F]uel cells in general, and SOFCs in particular, can be used in the execution of every DOE strategy. With an additional requirement that the technology utilize existing fueling infrastructure, SOFCs stand out as a key cross-cutting technology solution,” they argue.

They then go on to make detailed analyses of how SOFCs would contribute to each strategy. For example, in regard to deploying clean energy, they present a cogent, US-specific set of reasons for maintaining SOFCs in our technology portfolio.

“Today, 50 percent of the US’s electricity is produced from coal and 20 percent from natural gas. Our large reserves, and current lack of economically competitive alternatives, suggest that a sizable portion of our future electricity will continue to be derived from these two sources. …If electricity production remains dependent upon coal and natural gas, the sustainable use of these fuels and environmental emission reduction goals both require that we utilize these resources with the highest possible efficiency. While natural gas turbine technology has made significant progress and has efficiencies around 50%, coal technology still lags. Utilizing synthetic gas (syngas) derived from coal, SOFCs have potential efficiencies rivaling those of natural gas turbines. While many set a goal to eliminate our use of coal and natural gas, prudence suggests we ensure that their use is as efficient as possible until that goal is achieved.”

To further drive their point home, Wachsman et al. provide chapter and verse details of the remarkable achievements SECA-led R&D projects have made in lower operating temperatures, increasing power density, increasing materials durabilities and lowering costs. Wide scale applications and unsubsidized market penetration may still be a decade or so off, but impressive and successful demonstration and tests have occurred in uses that include

• Utility-scale power generation (with nearly twice the fuel-to-electricity efficiency and half the levelized cost of electricity, compared to pulverized coal/carbon capture and sequestration systems);
• High-efficiency distributed generation/gas turbine hybrid systems for grid stability and reversible (hydrogen-producing) SOFCs for grid storage;
• Combined heat and power, and “trigeneration” (heating, cooling and power) systems with over 70 percent efficiencies;
• Polygeneration system that can convert conventional energy sources “into multiple energy products, e.g., liquid fuels and electricity;”
• Vehicular auxiliary power units that can provide parallel hybrid support for anything from efficient tractor-trailer refrigeration units to range-extenders for hybrid an plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

In the lab, Wachsman et al. report that significant progress has been made, such as in “near quadrupling of power density [that] provides significant room for lowering SOFC operating temperature. Such temperatures dramatically expand applications and reduce cost, thus, fundamentally altering the fuel cell paradigm. LT-SOFCs provide the opportunity to obtain all of the anticipated fuel cell benefits without waiting for a H₂ infrastructure.”

Billions of dollars have already been sunk into SOFC research, development and deployment. The authors conclude with reminding the DOE and the administration what is in clear view, namely, “Around the globe, meaningful pilots and commercialization activities are expanding in the use of SOFC driven CHP. Abandoning, or even delaying, investments into this cross cutting technology just as it is becoming commercially viable are not in our short or long term interests.”

And, they go on to plead that protecting these investments and restoring funding will “provide clarity to the public and stakeholders regarding our fuel cell vision, facilitate a promising technology on the cusp of commercialization and maintain the critical mass of talent that has been assembled with SECA and other promising commercial interests.”

Makes sense to me. If it does to you, you might want to let the folks in Washington, DC know what you think.

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Oxygen (red spheres) migrates from one vacancy to another inside the scandia-doped cubic zirconia. In this new SOFC material, the oxygen must brush past cations (marked by the letter E).

The DOE Pulse reported that, using specialized cubic zirconia, scientists from Nanjing Normal University in China and Pacific Northwest National Lab created a membrane that could drop the temperature inside solid oxide fuel cells. Lowering the temperature means these cells could be built from less expensive materials.

Currently, the temperature inside SOFCs is about 1,000°C. With this much heat, the cells must be constructed using very durable and expensive ceramics. The team, led by NNU’s ed by Zhongging Yu, says its new scandia-doped cubic zirconia can work at temperatures as low as 650°C.

Using oxygen-plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy, the researchers grew scandia-stabilized zirconia films on sapphire substrates. The films were examined using x-ray diffraction, electron spectroscopy and microscopy.

The team used theoretical calculations and computational models to determined that nanoscale, nanosecond interactions occurring in the scandia-doped cubic film conducted oxygen faster than the yttrium doping in current electrolytes.

They say their work provides a fundamental understanding of how ions move in scandia-doped zirconia, and shows the material is very stable. “Our integrated approach takes the science to the next level,” says Theva Thevuthasan, who worked on the project and currently oversees the deposition and microfabrication capability at Environmental Molecular Science Lab at PNNL.

According to a PNNL news release, the group also has high hopes for another SOFC material made from nanolayers of zirconia and ceria.

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Fuel cells will be playing a role in cleaner energy production and energy storage, and produce only a fraction of the CO₂ that other fossil fuel energy production technologies currently use. Here are some of the stories we have covered about fuel cells:

Adaptive Materials scores Michigan $3M microtubular solid oxide fuel cell award

Video: PNNL’s Jeff Stevenson on solid oxide fuel cells

Bloom Box boom leaves lots of questions

60 Minutes’ look at ‘Bloom Box’ fuel cells

Ohio Funding to bring better Li-ions and SOFCs

Can natural gas-SOFC combo be cheapest route to cleaner electricity?

Commercial rollout of residential SOFCs planned for Japan in 2014

First marine SOFC test

Lowering the temperature of SOFCs

Plans underway to market mobile SOFC products

Microtubular SOFC: Small is beautiful - and cooler and powerful

Planar anode-supported fuel cells

NexTech shows off big SOFC

DOE pumping $42 million into fuel cells

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Ann Arbor-based Adaptive Materials Inc, a specialist in making microtubular solid oxide fuel cells, announced yesterday that it has won $3 million in new funding through Michigan’s Centers of Energy Excellence Program.

AMI, until now, has focused most of its efforts on military uses for its SOFCs, such as soldier-worn units, power sources for unmanned vehicles and field uses. The company has both 50- and 250-watt SOFCs that can be fuel with off-the-shelf propane and butane canisters.

While AMI’s business plan has always mentioned applications in the recreational vehicles, boating and medical devices markets, the reality is that it has been easier for military customers to justify the relatively high costs of these portable power devices.

However, a press release from AMI notes that, “The company will use the funding to support the commercialization of its fuel cells within the consumer leisure market.”

AMI may be on to something. It has always struck me that there is some pretty strong logic behind developing small SOFC products whose form factor incorporates safe, cheap and easy to find fuel cartridges. Generations of campers, for example, have grown up using portable stoves and lamps that use these small gas canisters.

Michelle Crumm, AMI chief business officer, says, “Funding from COEE provides the extra boost we need to break into the consumer market and deliver a truly game-changing technology. . . By focusing our technology on readily-available fuels, Adaptive Materials solved a problem associated with fuel cells: Consumers could certainly find need for a fuel cell, but no fuel to actually sustain the unit.”

Presumably, AMI will use the funds to continue to drive down the production costs of making their SOFCs. The company uses a unique co-extrusion method to form its microtubular SOFCs. Earlier this year, in the pages of ACerS’ International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology, the University of Birmingham’s (U.K.) Kevin Kendall praised recent developments in microtubular SOFC science and applications:

Significant progress is being made in the development of microtubular SOFCs. Since its invention in the early 1990s, information about its benefits has been disseminated, leading to the start-up of several companies interested in applications from laptop power supplies to combined heat and power to transport and APUs.

Plastic extrusion is the main method for producing microtubular cells. This is an economic process, which can lead to high-quality ceramics with good strength and Weibull modulus. Co-extrusion is also a promising possibility that could produce one-step processing of cells.

A key benefit of microtubular SOFC is the increased power density, inversely proportional to diameter. Power densities of 1 kW/L are possible but the number of cell connections rises with the square of power density and could become the limiting factor. Thermal shock resistance of microtubes is many orders of magnitude better than that of planar SOFCs. Ramp rates of 8000 K/min are possible.

Aaron Crumm, Adaptive Materials’ chief visionary officer and co-founder, along with John W. Halloran, published an excellent paper in ACerS’ Journal of the American Ceramic Society back in 1998 about innovative methods to micromanufacture complex ceramic–metal structures:

These structures are fabricated by multiple pass co-extrusion of a feedrod comprised of several powder-filled thermoplastic compounds. The compounds contain either ceramic, metal or fugitive powders. To illustrate the capabilities of microfabrication, a demonstration part containing lead manganese niobate-lead titanate ceramic and silver palladium was fabricated. The final part was microconfigured, with a fenestrated structure containing 3110 repeat units per square centimeter. The repeat unit feature sizes were 15 and 5 µm for the ceramic and electrode, respectively. Microfabrication by co-extrusion is proposed as a fabrication technique for the production of smart structures and materials.

Illustration from Crumm and Halloran paper. Credit: JACerS

The COEE program, administered by the Michigan Economic Development Corp., supports the development, growth and sustainability of alternative energy sectors throughout the state. The COEE program focuses on where the state has competitive advantages in areas of the workforce, intellectual property and natural resources but where funding is required to overcome technical and supply-chain hurdles that could prevent or stall the commercialization process.

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Jeff Stevenson is a Laboratory Fellow in the Energy Materials Group at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and has been working on SOFCs for more than a decade. This video, shot at the recent ICACC’10 conference in Daytona Beach, Fla., provides some history on the development of these fuel cells, and discusses some of the remaining science and manufacturing challenges that are hindering their widespread commercialization.

Stevenson also discusses some of the work being done by the Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance, a government-industry collaboration, that is working on methods to employ SOFCs that can make cleaner use of coal and other fossil fuels for energy generation, and describes some of the “early adopters” of SOFC systems, such as systems being used for auxiliary power units (APUs) used by some tractor-trailer operators.

Besides working at PNNL, Stevenson serves as an associate editor of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and reviews and edits manuscripts in the field of SOFCs.

7 minutes.

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