Materials for Fuel Cells

Featuring Lutgard C. De Jonghe, Ph.D.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
Materials Sciences Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Location: Information and Computer Science (ICS), Room 174
Free and open to the public

Abstract:
Improvements in performance and cost of fuel cells, particularly the intermediate to high temperature ones, are needed. Important is the lowering of the temperature of operation of the ITSOFCs to below 7,000 C and increasing their mechanical robustness.

The infiltration of nanoscale particles, forming connected networks, into SOFC electrodes, has been shown to lead to considerable benefit in performance. Porous electrodes skeletons (backbones), consisting of electrolyte material such as YSZ, when infiltrated, delivered results comparable to those of the standard Ni-YSZ and LSM-YSZ electrode configurations. Additionally, the performances of both single component MIEC and of composite electrodes have been significantly enhanced by the connected nanoscale particle networks formed by infiltration. The benefits of metal-supported membranes are also discussed.

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) and by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract # DE-AC02-05CH11231.

About the Speaker:
Lutgard C. De Jonghe graduated in chemical engineering in Antwerp, after which he joined the Nuclear Research Center in Mol, Belgium. In 1965, he came to the U.S., obtained an M.S. degree in materials science - metallurgy at the University of Delaware in 1968, and a Ph.D. in materials sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1970. Thereafter, he was a research fellow at the Division of Engineering and Applied Physics at Harvard. In 1972 he joined the faculty of the Materials Sciences Department at Cornell University.  Since 1978 he has been a faculty member at UC Berkeley, and a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has worked on gas-solid reactions, ionic conductors, processing of advanced ceramics, thin film solid oxide fuel cells, and lithium batteries.  He currently continues his research on thin fuel cells, proton conductors, ceramic processing and high temperature structural ceramics at the UCB-LBNL He has published over 200 articles, monographs and other publications and holds 34 patents.

He was chairman of the first Gordon Research Conference on Ceramic Processing in 1985.  He has received several awards, including a Senior U.S. Scientist A. v. Humboldt Award, and was Engineering Alumnus 2000 at the University of Delaware.  He is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society, and has served on numerous national and international committees.