Development of Cost Effective Cell Manufacturing Processes at Global Thermoelectric Inc.

摘要

Global Thermoelectric Inc. has been actively engaged in cost effective solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) manufacturing process research and development since 1998. Global's current cell manufacturing technology has three major processing steps for fabrication of its anode supported planar cells: tape casting, screen-printing and co-firing. The tape casting process includes anode raw materials quality control, slurry preparation, tape casting, controlled drying, tape cutting and tape substrate quality assurance. It yields anode substrates approximately 1 mm in thickness using a single casting step. The screen-printing process includes paste preparation, subsequent layer screen-printing, continuous drying, unfired (green) cell punching and green cell quality assurance. All layers, such as anode functional layer, electrolyte and cathode functional layer are printed directly on the green anode substrate tape. Multi-layer green cells are sintered into complete cells through a continuous co-firing process. The processes describe above evolved from the laboratory research stage to the pilot plant production stage over two years. Currently, Global is able to produce cells at a volume equivalent to 5 MW/year with >90% yield. Global attributes this progress to the combination of advanced cell manufacturing technologies, engineering principles and adherence to manufacturing discipline. Major activities and achievements in all three areas will be discussed in this paper.