Development of molten carbonate fuel cell stack at Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Some results of the research and development on component, cell, stack and system technologies performed in 1988 are presented. A type of Ni-Al alloy has been shown to improve the creep characteristics of the anode. The Ni-Al anode is expected to exhibit less than 3% creep even after 40000 h cell operation. A nominal 5 kW stack consisting of twenty 2000 cm² cells was assembled and tested. The average cell voltage of the stack was 0.78 V at 150 mA/cm² and 80% fuel utilization. The stack performance was very stable, and the decay of the average cell voltage was as little as 5 mV/1000 h after 3000 h of operation. In parallel with the stack technology development, dynamic characteristics of stacks and a test facility have been investigated to establish a control strategy for molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) plants in operation