Manufacturing and microstructure of porous metal supports for a solid oxide fuel cell

One of the major drawbacks of a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is the longtime stability. In order to have mechanical stability, the cell can be supported by a so-called porous metal support. These metal supports are usually manufactured by tape casting. This work, in contrast, is focused on processing these supports by different powder metallurgical techniques such as the press- and sinter route, gravity sintering or metal injection moulding. For some samples a shrinkage of 15% could be obtained as defined by the shrinkage of the ceramic functional layers (in case of desired “co-sintering an interval of 15–20% is preferable). The most promising manufacturing routes were found to be gravity sintering (about 50% porosity) and MIM (20–28% porosity): in both cases the pores are homogeneously distributed, and only slight agglomeration of pores can be seen.