• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.62-72
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• 2010

Solid oxide fuel cells(SOFCs) directly convert the fuel gases to electric energy through electrochemical reactions. The advantage of SOFCs is that they easily operate with diversified fuels such as natural gases owing to their high temperature operation. However, high temperature operation also incurs the challenge in enhancing long term reliability and durability of SOFCs. The most commonly used anode material is Ni/YSZ. This has, however, some drawbacks in terms of long-term reliability at high temperatures, hydrocarbon fuel usages, and so on, therefore the need to develop the new anode materials increases. This article summarizes the trend of the novel anode materials development of SOFCs.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.12 s.283
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• pp.777-786
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• 2005

The Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) is an electrochemical device to convert chemical energy of a fuel into electricity at temperatures from about 600 to $1000^{\circ}C$. The SOFC offers certain advantages over lower temperature fuel cells, notably its ability to use CO as a fuel rather than being poisoned by it, and high grade exhaust heat for combined heat and power, or combined cycle gas turbine applications. This paper reviews the operating principle, materials for different cell and stack components, cell designs, and applications of SOFCs. Among all designs of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs), the most progress has been achieved with the tubular design. However, the electrical resistance of tubular SOFCs is high, and specific power output $(W/cm^2)$ and volumetric power density $(W/cm^3)$ low. Planar SOFCs, in contrast, are capable of achieving very high power densities.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.478-482
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• 2016

Metal-supported SOFCs have been investigated to overcome the disadvantages of ceramic-supported SOFCs, including issues related to mechanical strength and sealing. In the case of ceramic-supported cells, the mechanical support is a brittle ceramic or cermet, and it contains expensive materials. However, metal-supported cells utilize ceramic layers that are only as thick as necessary for electrochemical functioning, thereby compensating for the disadvantages of ceramic-supported cells. The mechanical support is fabricated from inexpensive and robust metals, and the electrochemically active layers are applied directly to the metal support. The metal-supported SOFCs thus can provide a reduced system cost, ease of manufacturing, and operational advantages. Owing to these features, metal-supported SOFCs are a very promising candidate for commercialization. Given the importance of studying worldwide trends in metal-supported SOFC research for performance evaluation, this paper reviews development trends with a focus on fabrication methods. Furthermore, a novel fabrication method developed in KAIST is discussed.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.218-221
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• 2009

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), as high-temperature fuel cells, have various advantages. In some merits of SOFCs, high temperature operation can lead to the capability for internal reforming, providing fuel flexibility. SOFCs can directly use CH4 and CO as fuels with sufficient steam feeds. However, hydrocarbons heavier than CH4, such as ethylene, ethane, and propane, induce carbon deposition on the Ni-based anodes of SOFCs. In the case of the ethylene steam reforming reaction on a Ni-based catalyst, the rate of carbon deposition is faster than among other hydrocarbons, even aromatics. In the reformates of heavy hydrocarbons (diesel, gasoline, kerosene and JP-8), the concentration of ethylene is usually higher than other low hydrocarbons such as methane, propane and butane. It is importatnt that ethylene in the reformate is removed for stlable operation of SOFCs. A new methodology, termed post-reforming was introduced for removing low hydrocarbons from the reformate gas stream. In this work, activity tests of some post-reforming catalysts, such as CGO-Ru, CGO-Ni, and CGO-Pt, are investigated. CGO-Pt catalyst is not good for removing ethylene due to low conversion of ethylene and low selectivity of ethylene dehydrogenation. The other hand, CGO-Ru and CGO-Ni catalysts show good ethylene conversion, and CGO-Ni catalyst shows the best reaction selectivity of ethylene dehydrogenation.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11b
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• pp.3067-3072
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• 2008

A two-dimensional model for anode-supported IT-SOFCs is proposed in order to accurately consider the heat and mass transport processes with a fully-developed axial velocity profile in channel flow. A comprehensive micro model is employed to describe the electrochemical reaction in anode and cathode of SOFCs. This paper investigates the effects of operational parameters (inlet temperature, the amount of flow rate, and air flow rate) including flow configurations (co-flow and counter-flow) on the current density and temperature distributions in the IT-SOFCs.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.56.1-56.1
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• 2009

The intermediate operating temperature of solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs) have achieved considerable importance in the area of power fabrication. This is because to improve materials compatibility, their long-term stability and cost saving potential. However, to conserve rational cell performance at reduced-temperature regime, cathode performance should be obtained without negotiating the internal resistance and the electrode kinetics of the cell. Recently, double perovskite structure cathodes have been studied with great attention as a potential material for IT-SOFCs. In this study, double-perovskite structured cathodes of $GdBaCoCuO_{5+\delta}$, $GdBaCo_{2/3}Cu_{2/3}Fe_{2/3}O_{5+\delta}$ compositions and $(1-x)GdBaCo_2O_{5+\delta}+xCe_{0.9}Gd_{0.1}O_{1.95}$ (x = 10, 20, 30 and 40 wt.%) composites were evaluated as the cathode for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells(IT-SOFCs). Electrical conductivity of the cathodes were measured by DC 4-probe method, and the thermal expansion coefficient of each sample was measured up to $900^{\circ}C$ by a dilatometer study. Area specific resistances(ASR) of the $GdBaCo_{2/3}Cu_{2/3}Fe_{2/3}O_{5+\delta}$ cathode and 70 wt.% $GdBaCo_2O5+\delta$ + 30wt.% Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95 composite cathode on CGO electrolyte substrate were analyzed using AC 3-probe impedance study. The obtained results demonstrate that double perovskite-based compositions are promising cathode materials for IT-SOFCs.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2012.10a
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• pp.579-580
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• 2012

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.45 no.12
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• pp.802-806
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• 2008

A proper sealant for low temperature SOFCs should show zero or low leak rates to avoid direct mixing of the fuel and oxidant gases or leakage of fuel gas during the operation of SOFCs. Furthermore, it should be chemically and/or mechanically stable in both oxidizing and reducing environments and chemically compatible with other fuel cell components. In the present work, we developed a novel compressed seal gasket of glass-based composite reinforced with ceramic particulate particles, which can efficiently control the viscous flow of glass matrix as well as the crystallization of glass phase. This novel sealing gasket showed excellent gas tightness under very low compressive load which would be suitable for the operation of SOFCs in the temperature range $600{\sim}650^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.43 no.12 s.295
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• pp.823-828
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• 2006

One of the main issues of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) is to reduce the operating temperature to $750^{\circ}C$ or less. It has advantages of improving the life of component parts and the long-term stability of a system, so the production cost could be decreased. In order to achieve that, the ohmic and polarization loss of a single cell should be minimized first. This paper presents.to fabricate anode-supported single cells with controlling microstructure as a function of particle size and volume of graphite and NiO-YSZ weight ratio. By means of optimizing the manufactural condition through microstructure analysis and performance evaluation, the single cell which had NiO-YSZ=6:4, graphite volume of 24% and graphite size of $75{\mu}m$ as the anode composition showed a distinguished power density of $510mW/cm^2$ at $650^{\circ}C$ and $810mW/cm^2$ at $700^{\circ}C$, respectively.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.469-477
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• 2016

The application of nanomaterials for electrodes of intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) is introduced. In conventional SOFCs, the operating temperature is higher than 1073 K, and so application of nanomaterials is not suitable because of the high degradation rate that results from sintering, aggregation, or reactions. However, by allowing a decrease of the operating temperature, nanomaterials are attracting much interest. In this review, nanocomposite films with columnar morphology, called double columnar or vertically aligned nanocomposites and prepared by pulsed laser ablation method, are introduced. For anodes, metal nano particles prepared by exsolution from perovskite lattice are also applied. By using dissolution and exsolution into and from the perovskite matrix, performed by changing $P_{O2}$ in the gas phase at each interval, recovery of the power density can be achieved by keeping the metal particle size small. Therefore, it is expected that the application of nanomaterials will become more popular in future SOFC development.