Overview of the SOFC Development Status

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC) show great promise for future employment in electric power production because of their high efficiency and low environmental impact. Moreover, they can be used with a great variety of fuels (hydrogen, carbon monoxide, natural gas, and biogas) and can play an important role in carbon sequestration. However, before they go on the market, some questions have to be answered including long term stability of suitable high temperature materials, low cost designs and manufacturing methods, and efficient plant concepts. This article presents an overview on the essential designs as well as on the most important developers in the field of SOFC technology. Based on the data published in recent years on international conferences a comparison is performed on the status of cell, stack and system development.