The biggest SOFC R&D activities in China are conducted at Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering. 45 full time staffs are vertically integrated, in which they came from various areas including Chemistry Engineering, Applied Physics, Material Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Power Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Control Engineering, System Science, as well as Computer Science. They are working on the nano-powder preparation, single cell manufacture, cell testing, stack components and stack fabrication, fuel processing and thermal management, as well as system integration. Currently we manufacture and sale planar anode supported cells for international market with highest performance/price ratio and have many costumers. Cells with performance of 0.4-0.6W/cm2 at 750℃ are routinely produced. We offer various nano-powders including LSM, LSCF, LSC, CGO, YSZ. Our cell testing group offers long term testing services in various fuel gases. Long term tests on performance degradation, in particular at low temperature and high current density, are intensively carried out. Our single cell testing has demonstrated high fuel utilizations of 98%, 91% and 70% at 850℃, 750℃, and 700℃ respectively.
Stack components development and stack building are one of the most important activities in the mean time. We and our strategic partner have produced high performance special stainless steels manufactured in a cost effective way which meet our interconnect requirement. We demonstrated low cost stack by combining internal manifold design and low cost components selection. A five cell short stack has run for more than 3000 hours and the voltage is monitored individually for each cells.
Stacks of 500W to kW power range are built and tested. We successfully manufactured 30×30cm2 cells and the multi-kilowatt single stack is under developed. Fuel treatments with different processes are under investigation for various application including steam reforming, auto-thermal reforming and CPOX. 2kW power and heat co-generation system are under development and 20kW electrical generation system are planned this year in collaboration with a big Chinese electricity generation company. Our goal is to commercialize solid oxide fuel cell technology through collaborations with any potential partners including research, industry and investment vehicles. Our current activities are focused on low cost raw materials and components, manufacturing and offering low cost single cells for international market, low cost stack design and manufacture with high power density, high stability, as well as system demonstration.