Micro-tubular Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and Their Stacks Running on Direct Ethanol Fuels

Anode-supported micro-tubular solid oxide fuel cells (AS-MT-SOFCs) have been regarded as promising energy conversion devices. In our group, dip-coating and co-sintering techniques were used in order to reduce the cost. In this paper, micro-tubular SOFC single cells (Phi 5mm*L50mm) and their stacks are fabricated and assembled. The maximum power density of the fabricated single cell reaches 520 and 403 mW.cm(-2) at 850 and 800 degrees C in hydrogen fuel, compared to 422 and 316 mW.cm(-2) in ethanol fuel. The assembled 4-cell-stack in parallel and 2-cell-stack in series obtain 9.7W and 5.8W power output at 850 degrees C, respectively. We investigated the stability of the single cell running on ethanol fuels. A possible design of portable system based on MT-SOFCs was also proposed.