Manufacturing of cells and stacks for SOFC development, test and demonstration projects and SOFC hotbox design development, phase 1

The purpose of this project is to support the continued SOFC development through manufacturing process optimization and manufacturing of SOFC cells and stacks. These cells and stacks will serve as a necessary base for the development activities and for the establishment of a number of test and demonstration activities. The manufacture will also help provide operating experiences and reduce manufacturing cost. Another main focus of the manufacturing is to assure technical improvements and reliability. It is imperative to the eventual success of the technology that test and demonstration is carried out in the pre-market conditions that will exist for the next years in the three market segments targeted by TOFC (distributed generation, micro CHP and APU, incl. marine APU). Finally, the project includes development activities focusing on the stack-system interface (hotbox design development) and on dealing with transients and start- up and shut-down times, which is of particular importance for APU and micro CHP applications. Three topics are addressed: 1) Cell manufacturing, including production development, capacity lift and manufacturing of cells for test and demonstration, 2) Stack manufacture and test, including a test facility, stack manufacturing and test of stacks in a system at HCV, 3) Hotbox design development, including design, prototype construction and testing. Major achievements are successful manufacture of adequate amounts of cells and stacks according to the application. Furthermore, significant over-performance in design, construction and test of a methanol based hotbox prototype as well as publication of this