200 W Module Design Using Micro Tubular SOFCs

Conventional solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) have several challenges, such as rapid heat cycle. In order to solve these problems, we utilized micro tubular SOFCs and developed a micro tubular SOFC bundle with the performance over 3 Wcm(-3). In this study, we focused on the establishment of fabrication technique of 15 cm(3) stack-bundle and assembling technique of a few-hundred-W class module. The micro tubular cells in the stack-bundle were connected by using a conducting paste in series and parallel. The stack-bundle has current terminals on the top and bottom of the stack-bundle, which allows easy assembling of a module (consisting of eight stack-modules, a pair of current collectors and a pair of fuel manifolds) only by fastening several bolts. The power of this module was designed to generate 200 W from the output power of single micro tubular SOFCs.