Fabrication of planar solid oxide fuel cell by composite plate process

The composite plate process has been investigated, in which the green films were co-fired in the forms of two layers of anode/electrolyte and of three layers of anode/electrolyte/cathode attached with gas distributors. The flat cells of 83 cm² were fabricated successfully. For characterizing its performance, the single cells with an effective area of 1.25 cm² were tested. The co-fired cell of two layers showed higher performance than that of three layers. In the co-fired cell of two layers, the large voltage loss appeared in anodic side after 150 h operation, which is attributed to the poor contact between anode gas distributor and current collector, and to the increase of anodic polarization. On the other hand, the performance loss in the co-fired cell of three layers was due mainly to large iR drop and electrode overvoltage in the cathodic side. On the basis of these results, some problems in the composite plate process were discussed.