NEXTECH MATERIALS, LTD. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: Fuel cells are environmentally clean, quiet, and highly efficient devices for generating e

Description

Fuel cells are environmentally clean, quiet, and highly efficient devices for generating electricity and heat from natural gas, biomass, and other fuels. Of the various fuel cell types, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), which operate at high temperatures, are especially promising for stationary power applications utilizing existing fuels such as coal and natural gas. Although progress is being made, commercial acceptance of SOFC systems has not been completely realized due to their high production costs and low durability. Increasing power density, through reduction of resistive losses in a cell, is one route to lowering SOFC costs. Operating temperature reduction also is being pursued to reduce cost and improve durability. The cathode material has been identified as key to both of these approaches.This SBIR project aims to establish cost effective and scalable processes for preparing advanced SOFC cathode materials having core-shell composite microstructures. The project leverages results of recent DOE sponsored research and will deliver high performance cathode materials, providing drop-in process capability to SOFC manufacturers. In Phase I, NexTech Materials will perform a comparative study of nano-composite cathode compositions and processing methods. A techno-economic assessment will be performed to identify promising cathode formulations and cost-effective powder manufacturing processes. Promising formulations will be down-selected for composition and process optimization studies in Phase II, which will include long-term SOFC stack testing and cathode materials sampling to SOFC manufacturers.