Longer Lasting and More Efficient Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells due to Improvements in Ceramic Materials and their Production Process

Emergy indicators of the industrial production and pilot-plant operation of Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells (MCFC) are presented, as a continuation of ongoing research on Hydrogen-based technologies. MCFCs are very likely to shortly reach the commercialization phase, as a result of the recent intense efforts in the development of innovative ceramic components (anode, cathode and matrix), as well as metallic components, which are now characterized by higher corrosion resistance and more constant performance in time. These kind of fuel cells are being developed by the National Agency for Energy and Environment (ENEA, Italy), in collaboration with several Italian enterprises (e.g., Ansaldo Fuel Cells Srl, Venezia Tecnologie, FN SpA) under an R&D activity funded by the Italian Government. The present analysis is based on process data directly provided by the partners. This analysis provides a special insight into the improvements in the final energy and environmental performance of the cells, made possible by means of innovative materials also aimed at extending the fuel cell lifetime. It was also possible to highlight the process steps requiring the largest emergy input and to identify the specific items that contribute to a larger extent to the total emergy cost. Performance and loading indicators were also calculated and compared for several independent improvement options over different lifetime scenarios and compared with other power plant technologies.