NEXTECH MATERIALS, LTD. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 24b

Description

World energy markets have entered a period of inexpensive natural gas and fossil fuels, as hydraulic fracturing technologies offer energy independence to the U.S. This will likely extend the continued and increased fossil fuels use for the next decades. To create the greatest economic advantage from domestic natural gas, oil and coal reserves, new energy systems are required that utilize these resources efficiently at the emerging micro-grid and conventional grid scale. A key advantage of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) system is its ability to provide scalable and high-efficiency baseload power generation utilizing variety of fuels such as methane, syngas from gasified fuels (from coal to biomass) and hydrogen. This stands in contrast to solar and wind, which require storage technology in order to provide consistent power to the grid (or micro-grid) they feed. However, to access commercial markets, SOFCs must achieve improvements in cost, performance, and diversify the applications portfolio. For SOFCs to realize their potential and achieve widespread commercial adoption, these complex electrochemical systems must be made robust to harsh operating conditions including periodic thermal cycling (rapid changes in temperature) and redox cycling (fuel supply interruptions). Traditional electrolyte and anode supported cells are prone to failures at these conditions. The robustness of metal supported SOFCs is ideally suited to satisfy the above criteria and expands the application space. The tantalizing new markets of power for data centers, automotive range extenders and other transportation auxiliary power units appear attainable with refinement of new and lower cost metal supported cell designs, but the product development window is narrow. Developers need tools and approaches to more rapidly evaluate and screen cell structural designs. The current approaches to fabricate SOFCs will not satisfy future needs. Additive manufacturing offers both a tool for rapid prototyping and unprecedented microstructural control in SOFC manufacturing. In this Phase I SBIR/STTR proposal, Nexceris will collaborate with West Virginia University to develop high power density metal supported SOFCs through additive manufacturing. Larger metal supported cells will be fabricated and electrochemically evaluated. In parallel, fabrication improvements will be implemented and transferred to Phase II for automated cell fabrication and validation in stacks.