Fabrication of ceramic trilayers for a monolithic solid oxide fuel cell

Claim 1

A method of constructing a monolithic fuel cell core made entirely of trilayer electrolyte and interconnect walls, the method comprising the steps of: mixing powders required to make an anode, a cathode, an electrolyte and an interconnect material separately with a plasticizer and a binder to form a batch of each of said materials; rolling each batch of said materials into a tape having a desired width and thickness; rolling the tape of anode and the tape of cathode material on each side of said tape of electrolyte and interconnect materials, thereby forming a trilayer electrolyte wall and a trilayer interconnect wall; cutting said trilayer tapes to length; molding at least one of said trilayer tapes into a desired shape; alternately stacking the two trilayer tapes to the desired height to form said core; extracting the binder from the core; and sintering the core to form the monolithic fuel cell core.

Claim 2

A method of constructing a monolithic fuel cell core made entirely of trilayer electrolyte and interconnect walls, the method comprising the steps of: mixing powders required to make an anode, a cathode, an electrolyte and an interconnect material separately with a plasticizer and a binder to form a batch of each of said materials; rolling each batch of said materials into a tape having a desired width and thickness; rolling the tape of anode and the tape of cathode material on each side of said tape of electrolyte and interconnect materials, thereby forming a trilayer electrolyte wall and a trilayer interconnect wall; cutting said trilayer tapes to length; molding at least one of said trilayer tapes into a desired shape; alternately stacking the two trilayer tapes to the desired height to form said core; extracting the binder from the core; and sintering the core to form the monolithic fuel cell core.

Claim 11

A method of constructing a monolithic fuel cell core and manifolding made of electrolyte and interconnect walls, the method comprising the steps of: mixing anode, cathode, electrolyte and interconnect powders separately with a binder and a plasticizer to form four separate batches of an anode, cathode, electrolyte and interconnect material; forming a separate flexible tape of each material with the desired width and thickness; forming two flexible trilayer tapes of desired thickness one trilayer tape comprising a layer of electrolyte material sandwiched between an anode tape and a cathode tape and the other trilayer tape comprising an interconnect tape sandwiched between an anode tape and a cathode tape; cutting said two trilayer tapes to length; molding at least one trilayer tape to the desired shape; alternately stacking said trilayer tapes to form the fuel cell core and manifolding; extracting said binder from each tape; and sintering the core and manifolding to form a monolithic structure.

Claim 12

A method of constructing a monolithic fuel cell core and manifolding made of electrolyte and interconnect walls, the method comprising the steps of: mixing anode, cathode, electrolyte and interconnect powders separately with a binder and a plasticizer to form four separate batches of an anode, cathode, electrolyte and interconnect material; forming a separate flexible tape of each material with the desired width and thickness; forming two flexible trilayer tapes of desired thickness one trilayer tape comprising a layer of electrolyte material sandwiched between an anode tape and a cathode tape and the other trilayer tape comprising an interconnect tape sandwiched between an anode tape and a cathode tape; cutting said two trilayer tapes to length; molding at least one trilayer tape to the desired shape; alternately stacking said trilayer tapes to form the fuel cell core and manifolding; extracting said binder from each tape; and sintering the core and manifolding to form a monolithic structure.

Claim 21

A method of constructing a monolithic fuel cell core and manifolding comprising the steps of: mixing powders with a binder and a plasticizer to form at least four separate batches of materials; forming a separate, flexible tape of each material; forming two flexible multilayer tapes, each multilayer tape comprising at least three separate, flexible tapes; cutting said two flexible multilayer tapes to size; molding at least one of said multilayer tapes to the desired shape; alternately stacking said multilayer tapes to form the fuel cell core and manifolding; extracting said binder from each multilayer tape; and sintering the core and manifolding to form a monolithic structure.

Claim 22

A method of constructing a monolithic fuel cell core and manifolding comprising the steps of: mixing powders with a binder and a plasticizer to form at least four separate batches of materials; forming a separate, flexible tape of each material; forming two flexible multilayer tapes, each multilayer tape comprising at least three separate, flexible tapes; cutting said two flexible multilayer tapes to size; molding at least one of said multilayer tapes to the desired shape; alternately stacking said multilayer tapes to form the fuel cell core and manifolding; extracting said binder from each multilayer tape; and sintering the core and manifolding to form a monolithic structure.