A Miniaturized Planar Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Based on Stainless Steel Microfluidic Channels

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) convert hydrogen directly to electricity with a high efficiency without noble metal catalyst, which makes it a strong candidate for a new generation power supply. This paper reports a miniaturized planar stainless steel based SOFC with microfluidic channels. The microfluidic channels are fabricated by etching stainless steel with a laser micromaching system. Polarization characterization reveals that the miniaturized SOFC achieves a maximum areal power density of 0.733 W/cm
²
and a maximum current density 2280 mA/cm
²
at a 0.3 V output voltage. This SOFC not only has low cost and simple manufacturing process, but also shows a high volumetric power density of 14.7 W/cm
³
projected to the anode volume, which is one of the highest among all planar SOFCs to date. The miniaturized SOFC may find potential applications in portable electronics and portable power generators.