Solid Oxide Cell and Stack Testing, Safety and Quality Assurance (SOCTESQA)

For the successful market penetration of high temperature solid oxide fuel/electrolysis cell energy systems it is necessary to increase the quality assurance and the reliable assessment of the corresponding cells and stacks. Therefore in May 2014 the EU-funded project “SOCTESQA” was launched. Partners from different countries in Europe and one external party from Singapore are working together to develop uniform and industry wide test procedures and programs for solid oxide cell/stack (SOC) assembly. In this project new application fields which are based on the operation of the SOC cell/stack assembly in the fuel cell (SOFC), in the electrolysis (SOEC) and in the reversible SOFC/SOEC mode are addressed. This covers the wide field of power generation systems, e.g. stationary SOFC μ-CHP, mobile SOFC APU and SOFC/SOEC power-to-gas systems. The paper presents the results which have been achieved so far in the SOCTESQA project. Besides a summary of existing test procedures a so called “test matrix” is presented. This document includes generic test modules, e.g. current-voltage curves, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, thermal cycling, electrical current cycling and long term tests both under steady state and dynamic operating conditions. The application specific test programs are created by combining several of these test modules in series. In a next step several of these test modules will be applied by the different partners to a SOC stack. The test output results (TOPs) of the partners are compared to each other and possible differences are discussed in context to differences in test input conditions (sensitivity analysis). This validation process helps to further improve the generic test modules and programs.JRC.F.2-Energy Conversion and Storage Technologie