sweet. We took the one great thing about sofcs, that they use low cost ceramics, and we mess it up with an ultra rare element like yitterium.

Cynacisim aside, this appears to be a huge leap forward for solid oxide fuel cells. In the near future we might see cars running on NG with high efficiency and high power density.

It would be good to see lower temperature V2G SOFCs running ANG on the road. Higher efficiency and lower gas pressures with lower cost domestically produced fuel would help.

@sjc

Agreed. I was thinking along the same lines. Methane is sort of renewable and is a hell of a lot easier to source from decaying biomass.

The substantial increase in ion conductivity tells me that it should have excellent power density.

New Superlattice Material Improves Ionic Conductivity Near Room Temperature by Factor of 100 Million; Implications for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
.....
A severe drawback toward the final implementation of SOFCs is the relatively low room temperature ionic conductivity of this material, which imposes rather high operational temperatures around 800°C.

Are these statements compatible?

Yttrium is not terribly rare. It's more abundant in the Earth's crust than tin, and about 10,000 times more abundant than gold.

I would gasify the biomass and produce whatever fuels we need. Gasification has been a proven technique for a long time. Syntec and others are doing it quite successfully and it is a good method to use. Synthesizing methane from gasified biomass is high yield, CO2 neutral and can be delivered via existing pipelines. No tankers to spill nor refineries to blow up.

Any work that is done to make fuel cells easier to use is certainly appreciated and interesting.

It is not necessary to have fuel cells operate at low temperatures; engines don't. The plug-in-hybrid mode of operation allows for immediate travel while any fuel cell or engine or catalytic converter is heating up. It also allows for the low cost energy, electricity. Electric valve operation allows for very high speed engines that are also efficient, light weight and powerful.

Combined cycle engines, invented over a hundred years ago, can be built into plug-in-hybrid cars that travel long distances, but if you are mostly running on electricity there is little financial justification for super high efficiency. Most cars are just parked most of the time. Fuel cells are so expensive that there needs to be a lot of justification. All known methods of producing and storing pure hydrogen make it expensive and inconvenient.

Lets just get plug-in-hybrids on the road in large numbers with options for the cost and efficiency of the engine or fuel cell. Using optimized small diesel engines, OPOC, would be very cost effective and efficient, but engines that run on both/either ethanol and gasoline will reduce fuel consumption enough as well. ..HG..

this dont serve for solar panels?
this can improve solar electricity production for a lot

Evolutionary advances,just like this incremental increase in Ionic Conductivity are just what is needed for the eventual development of practical fuel cells.

@ToppaTom

The article cites a 100 million fold improvement of ionic conductivity. I don't see that being incremental. I see that as monumental.

@HG

The reason for operating SOFCs at lower temperatures is to reduce physical stress from thermal expansion. The ceramics in SOFCs are brittle and fail after a few hundred cycles.

My understanding was that many high temperature FC's such as molten carbonate and solid oxide use the endothermic heat of the reaction to assist in the reformation of NG into H2 which can then be used in the FC. With the right catalyst there may be SOFC's that can use NG directly, or even diesel directly, but the high temperature is still advantagous. I wonder how this breakthrough would effect this? Obviously the lower temperature operation has implications for increasing lifetime of the FC and reducing lifecycle costs as well. However, another advantage of lower temp operation is the reduced startup time, as alluded to above. This would allow SOFC's to operate in realm currently reserved mainly for PEM FC's. High temp FC's are also commonly used in CHP applications to take advantage of the high temps. This would completely go away with low temp ops. My guess is this breakthrough would allow SOFC's to expand into other apps not previously practical, but they will still make sense, as is for stationary apps.

I think this is a breakthrough discovery relative to direct hydrogen fuel cells, making the goal of a solar/hydrogen economy much closer to realization.

There are now SOFCs that can take natural gas directly. Franklin has an SOFC that can take gasoline and diesel directly. I would say that very low temperature stacks may not be able to use multiple fuels. However, even a reduction down to 1000f would help the sealing situation and make the stacks more reliable and affordable without using expensive catalysts.

you are correct that high temperatures are needed to autoreform carbon-hydrogen bonded fuels. a low temp SOFC would have to run on H2 gas or possible CO gas as only O ions pass the solid membrane. At low temp these ions will not have the activation energy nessissary to break C-H bonds or N-H bonds in the case for an NH3 SOFC fuel cell. lowering the operating temp to above the autoreforming temperatures but still lower than 1000'C would reduce costs as common stainless steels could be used and hightemp silicon seals instead of exotic materials. you get the best of both worlds low cost cells but still the ability to use raw fuels like octane or methane or any of the alcohols pure or mixed.SOFC have been run on vegie oils too pretty much as long as the fuel does not have to much ash content to slag the stack any liquid or gas fuel that can be oxidized can be used in a SOFC.

If this really works, and you get really high ionic conductivities without electrical conductivity in a practical fuel cell ceramic membrane, it seems to me the big story here is more likely to be not the lower temperature operation, but the higher power density. That means more power in the same size unit and lower costs per watt, which could make these things quickly competitive (finally) with (less-efficient) mechanical generation for power plants. It could also make feasible fuel cell aircraft, such as liquid hydrogen ones.

As for the high temperature costs, yes they have been an issue but there are trade-offs. One concern I would have trying to run at a lower temperature on most anything but pure H2 is that you could easily get deposits which would gunk up your membrane; higher temperatures burn most such gunk off. And big pores means it is easier for molecules to get in to clog them, so you want your hydrocarbons broken up. Also it is more difficult to catalyze the reactions at low temp. And high temperature has actually been a big plus for another reason: you can efficiently recover waste heat in a bottoming cycle/turbocompounder, yielding superlative overall efficiencies.

For most applications I would lean towards trying to use this new membrane but still at pretty high temperatures. As for the problem of thermocycle lifetime (one SOFC company quotes 100 cycles) I would suggest that the thermal insulation developed for hot batteries be adapted, so that when the cell is idle you just still keep it hot. And heat-taking robots or other special tools would make it so that common service can be done on it while hot; thus, having to cool it down would be a rare event.

For the PHEV, though, or the Range-Extended EV, the scale would be rather small for the idea of keeping the SOFC hot (barring advanced multilayer vacuum insulation), and you probably would be tempted to go to an intermediate temperature that is more thermocycles friendly. But still probably a lot hotter than an ICE, which won't really matter because you only have to fire up at most once about every battery range (e.g. 40 miles).

What happens when a SOFC @ 800'C auto slams into an SUV full of kids?

@anon

Probably about the same thing that happens when the exhaust headers of an ICE vehicle slams into an SUV full of kids.

@Schager

You are probably right, the real story here is power density. Now if there was only a way for these things to take carbon directly...

I see high temperature SOFCs for cars in robust case in case vacuum chambers to act as thermal energy loss barriers. The hot SOFC stack would be SO well protected that it would have much less chance of causing damage compared to a cast iron V8 block and heavy hydraulic automatic transmission.

Those are good points about safety--I would say that's part of the case for not going too high on the temperature. Not because you can't wrap the oven in something unlikely to split completely open and burn someone, but because it's much easier for just a chip from inside to spill out and that could ignite a fire. Especially if the crashmate car leaks gasoline. So you need to wrap the SOFC in something that, like today's gasoline tanks, will crumple but not burst, but additionally it has to not melt at the SOFC's temperature and have some robust insulation around it. Possibly fire-coated fine-fiber graphite or ceramic fabric for a safety bag, and flexible intumescent layer.

Note that an advantage over engine blocks is that you can still make the SOFC stack so that it will crunch and absorb impact. Like today's gasoline tanks, you would probably put it in a safer spot, though maybe in the back of the "engine compartment" with accessories or batteries in front of it.

But 100 million times the ionic conductivity of today's SOFC's suggests to me that the hot zone might not be very big anyway.

This is power plant directed innovation, to make electricity for businesses, houses, and subways, not for cars. Why would Oak Ridge be working for them? Two points. 1) No offense, but notice how much of the serious science outside of biomedical is taking place in Europe and Japan? Hmmm. 2) The best way to move people around is bicycles and trains. I hear America barking, but it is up the wrong trees.

"The best way to move people around is bicycles and trains."

Especially when getting the kids to school in the morning.

Sorry, I left out the obvious "except when you are walking the kids to school in the morning."

Probably because everyone lives within walking distance.

Well yes, certainly. I don't know about where you are, but down here in Texas (which is not really a friend of education or energy conservation in general) it is guaranteed that if you live in an independent school district, you will live within walking distance of your school. That is a requirement of operating an independent school district down here. There are different rules for entities called county schools, but those sorts of schools have been disappearing since 95% of people in Texas actually live in cities now.

Let us not jump to conclusion too soon.

Time (up to 10 years) will tell what will be the real world permanent energy benefits.

A much more compact cooler SOFC could certainly have multiple applications.

More diversity for our future energy sources if positive, at leasst until such time as we have learnt to use solar power more efficiently.