Gas Sealing Reliability of Glass/Ceramic Composite Seals under SOFC Working Conditions

Gas-tight seals are also indispensable for fabricating high-performance portable SOFC as well as other cell components because gas sealing leakage causes severe damage to integrated cells or stacks. We investigated glass/ceramic composite materials to apply to gas-tight seals for portable SOFC. The composite seals with glass precursor particles and ceramic precursor showed relatively high reliable gas sealing properties under some SOFC working conditions. The composite seals showed sufficient high gas sealing properties in humidified hydrogen gas as well as air, and humidified hydrogen gas would be little impact on fusible conditions. The seals can be used in hydrogen as well as air. The composites also exhibited high durability against the thermal cycle between 650oC and 250oC, and they kept gas-tight sealing and no leakage was observed under raid heating conditions at the rate more than 200oC/min.