Ni_mesh_SOFC_HERD_Mastropasqua

At the forefront of fuel cells research and development

Fuel Cells

Electrochemical power generation, i.e., using fuel cells – or galvanic electrochemical cells – is one of the research group’s core focuses. Fuel cells spontaneously and directly convert chemical energy of a fuel into electric energy and thermal energy. Our background and expertise is on high temperature fuel cells (i.e., oxygen anion-conducting ceramics, and molten carbonate electrolytes). Our interest in these cells sparks from their high efficiency, fuel flexibility, and thermal integration potentialities with other energy systems.

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We work with commercial cells and stacks as well as with in-house manufactured single cells. We design and assemble novel devices by focusing on the sub-component level (electrodes, seals, current collection, manifolds) to obtain an optimized cell or stack with improved performance, with longer lifetime, and lower specific costs.

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We are interested in understanding the degradation mechanisms affecting each sub-component in the cell and in finding ways to prevent them. Therefore, we develop testing protocols to characterize the beginning-of-life and end-of-life performance of cells, as well as accelerated stress tests to probe specific degradation hypotheses. Moreover, we develop monitoring techniques for in-situ component health diagnostics.

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To corroborate our hypotheses, we perform visual inspections of our cells and stacks, as well as post-mortem characterizations with imagining techniques. We use scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Focused Ion Beam – SEM (FIB-SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) to look at microstructure and morphological changes in electrodes and cross sections. We use thermo-mechanical tests at high temperature, such as nano-indentation, dynamic mechanical testing (DMA), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to find material properties to feed into our degradation models.

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