Electrodes for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells and Electrolyzers

2010 Spring Symposium

 
Ray­mond J. Gorte
Chem­i­cal & Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing
Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia
Philadel­phia, PA 19104 USA
gorte@​seas.​upenn.​edu


Abstract — SOFC and SOE are based on elec­trolytes that are oxy­gen-ion con­duc­tors. SOFC can there­fore oper­ate on a wide range of fuels, includ­ing methane and oth­er hydro­car­bons. Like­wise, elec­trol­y­sis of CO2 is fea­si­ble in an SOE. How­ev­er, to allow sta­ble oper­a­tion with a wider range of feeds to the elec­trodes, new elec­trode mate­ri­als must be devel­oped. This talk will describe the meth­ods being devel­oped at Penn that allow the elec­trode com­po­si­tion and struc­ture to be var­ied eas­i­ly. Results for both fuel- and air-side elec­trodes will be dis­cussed.

Speaker’s Biog­ra­phy — Dr. Ray­mond J. Gorte joined the fac­ul­ty at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia in 1981 after receiv­ing his PhD in Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta. He is cur­rent­ly the Rus­sell Pearce and Eliz­a­beth Crim­i­an Heuer Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal & Bio­mol­e­c­u­lar Engi­neer­ing, with a sec­ondary appoint­ment in Mate­ri­als Sci­ence & Engi­neer­ing. Since join­ing Penn, Dr. Gorte has served as Chair­man of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from 1995 to 2000 and was the Carl V. S. Pat­ter­son Pro­fes­sor of Chem­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from 1996 through 2001. He received the 1997 Par­ra­vano Award of the Michi­gan Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, the 1998 Philadel­phia Catal­y­sis Club Award, the 1999 Paul Emmett Award of the North Amer­i­can Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, the 2001 Penn Engi­neer­ing Dis­tin­guished Research Award, and the 2009 AIChE Wil­helm Award. He has served as Chair­man of the Gor­don Con­fer­ence on Catal­y­sis (1998) and Pro­gram Chair­man of the 12th Inter­na­tion­al Zeo­lite Con­fer­ence (1998). His present research inter­ests are focused on elec­trodes for sol­id-oxide fuel cells and on ther­mo­dy­nam­ic stud­ies of redox prop­er­ties with oxi­da­tion cat­a­lysts. He is also known for his research on zeo­lite acid­i­ty and for met­al-sup­port effects, espe­cial­ly with ceria-sup­port­ed pre­cious met­als, used in auto­mo­tive emis­sions con­trol.