Patent ID: 8920612

Claim:
A manufacturing process for planar SOFC-MEA with dense electrolyte layer comprising the following steps: a. producing an anode electrode substrate with size in a range from 5×5 cm 2 to 12×12 cm 2 with thickness about 1000 μm; b. producing a half cell onto the electrode substrate by magnetron sputtering, wherein the magnetron sputtering process comprising either (1) RF magnetron sputtering with oxide target materials, which is one of YSZ+NiO, GDC+NiO, LSGM+NiO, SDC+NiO, YDC+NiO, or YSZ, or GDC, or LSGM, or SDC, or YDC, wherein the RF magnetron sputtering is by dual gun co-sputter to deposit the electrolyte material onto the electrode substrate, or (2) reactive magnetron sputtering with metal alloy target materials, which is one of Zr x —Y 1-x , Zr x —Sc 1-x , Ce x —Gd 1-x , Ce x —Sm 1-x , Ce x —Y 1-x , where x is represented by a range of 80%<x<100%, or LSGM, wherein the reactive magnetron sputtering is by dual gun co-sputter to deposit electrolyte materials onto the electrode substrate in thickness of 5˜10 μm to form the half cell; c. producing the half cell with high-temperature sintering for anode/electrolyte half cell; sintering temperature is about 1400° C.; sintering time is about 6 hours; conducting gas permeability testing by using SEM to examine the microstructure of the half cell to assure the full densification of electrolyte layer having gas permeability less than 1×10 −6 L/cm 2 /sec, if yes, then proceed to step d; if open pores still exist, further adjusting sintering temperature in a range from 1200° C. to 1600° C. and sintering time more than 3 hours to achieve dense structure; d. building a porous layer of cathode material by screen printing onto the half cell with dense electrolyte layer; conducting sintering at about 1100° C. for about 3 hours to obtain a full unit cell with dense electrolyte layer; conducting electrical performance testing and power density measurement to ensure the full unit cell performance in achieving a power density about 515 mW/cm 2 with open circuit voltage about 1.06V at about 800° C.