Comparative Study of SOFC’s Fabricated With Conventional and Reaction-Sintered 8YSZ Powders

“Reaction-sintered” powder processing is a new method for low-cost production of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). Developed by CoorsTek, Inc., reaction-sintered 8YSZ powders may prove to be a low-cost alternative to conventional ceramic powders used in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC’s). However, the performance of fuel cells fabricated using reaction-sintered 8YSZ powders needs to be quantitatively compared to the conventional 8YSZ powders. In this study, we present results of such a comparison by evaluating both planar anode supports and tubular SOFC’s fabricated using reaction-sintered and conventional 8YSZ powders. Comparisons between material sets were conducted to compare cell morphology and composition, in addition to a number of different SOFC-performance metrics, including gas transport, fuel-conversion and power density. Experimental results show that the performance of SOFCs fabricated using reaction-sintered 8YSZ is comparable to cells fabricated with conventional 8YSZ powders.