Method of fabricating a monolithic solid oxide fuel cell

A method of constructing a fuel cell comprising the steps of:

• mixing ceramic powders required to make an anode, a cathode, an electrolyte, and an interconnect each individually with a binder system to form a batch of each of said materials;
• forming thin tapes of each of said materials from said batches;
• attaching said anode tape onto one side of said electrolyte tape and said cathode tape on an opposite side of said electrolyte tape to form a trilayer electrolyte tape;
• shaping respective sections of said anode tape and said cathode tape into a desired corrugated configuration;
• cutting said trilayer electrolyte tape and said attached shaped anode and cathode tape sections to form a plurality of trilayer electrolyte elements having a desired gross net shape;
• cutting said interconnect tape to form a plurality of interconnect elements having a desired shape;
• separately heating said trilayer electrolyte elements and said interconnect elements to a temperature and for a duration sufficient to cause removal of the binder system and to partially density said respective materials;
• cooling said at least partially densified trilayer electrolyte and interconnect elements;
• wetting one surface of said interconnect elements and a surface of said anode of said trilayer electrolyte elements with an anode bonding agent, said anode bonding agent including powders of said anode ceramic material, interconnect ceramic materials, binder system materials, and a solvent mixed into a viscous slurry;
• wetting the opposite surface of said interconnect elements and the surface of said cathode of said trilayer electrolyte elements with a cathode bonding agent, said cathode bonding agent including powders of said cathode ceramic material, interconnect ceramic materials, binder system materials, and a solvent mixed into a viscous slurry;
• stacking a plurality of said at least partially sintered trilayer electrolyte elements alternately with a plurality of said interconnect elements to form a stacked array;
• and
• fully densifying said stacked array to bond the contacting surfaces of said alternately stacked trilayer electrolyte and interconnect elements.

A method of constructing a cross flow monolithic solid oxide fuel cell having a plurality of stacked cells, each cell including a cathode, an electrolyte, and an anode, said cells being separated from one another by an interconnect, comprising the steps of:

• assembling and at least partially sintering a plurality of electrolyte cell elements, each electrolyte cell element including a trilayer electrolyte having respective interbonded planar layers of cathode, electrolyte, and anode ceramic materials, a corrugated anode ceramic layer bonded to said anode planar layer of said trilayer electrolyte, and a corrugated cathode ceramic layer bonded to said cathode planar layer of said electrolyte trilayer oriented with said corrugations aligned at an angle with respect to said corrugations of said corrugated anode layer, said electrolyte cell elements having a desired configuration;
• forming a plurality of interconnect elements in a desired configuration;
• separately heating said elements until partially densified
• wetting one surface of said interconnect elements and projecting surfaces of said corrugated anode of said electrolyte cell elements with an anode bonding agent, said anode bonding agent including powders of said anode ceramic material, said interconnect ceramic materials, a binder system materials, and a solvent mixed into a viscous slurry;
• wetting the opposite surface of said interconnect elements and projecting surfaces of said corrugated cathode of said electrolyte cell elements with a cathode bonding agent, said cathode bonding agent including powders of said cathode ceramic material, said interconnect ceramic material, said binder system materials, and a solvent mixed into a viscous slurry;
• stacking a plurality of said at least partially sintered electrolyte elements alternately with a plurality of said interconnect elements to form a stacked array;
• and
• heating said stacked array to fully densify said elements and to bond the contacting surfaces of said alternately stacked electrolyte cell elements and interconnect elements.

A method of fabricating a monolithic oxide fuel cell from a plurality of multilayer tapes, comprising the steps of:

• (a) sintering said plurality of multilayer tapes until partially densified;
• (b) assembling said partially densified tapes into a monolithic core;
• and
• (c) sintering said core until fully densified.