Spinel oxide layers for high temperature fuel cell applications

In the last decades Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs)gained an important place among the alternativeenergy production sources. This is due to SOFCs wideoperation temperature range (600-1000 °C) and to thepossibility of using many types of fuels includingvarious hydrocarbons. The ferritic stainless steelinterconnect is one of the main components of a SOFCstack. Interconnects require high electricalconductivity coatings with blocking propertiesagainst Cr transport from the steel substrate. Thisbook provides a study of the oxides with spinelstructure obtained by thermal oxidation of Mn-Co-Femetallic thin films. The films were deposited bymagnetron co-sputtering on ZMG232L (Hitachi MetalsLtd.®) ferritic stainless steel. The coatings'properties were studied as a function of annealingparameters (atmosphere temperature and time). Themost promising results to be used for stackapplications were obtained for 1 ?m Mn-Co coatingsdeposited on pre-annealed ZMG232L. Low resistivityno Cr diffusion and no undesired oxide phases weredetected for these coatings. Based on the electricalproperties the estimated lifetime of SOFCs usingthese coated interconnects is 22000 h.