Fuel cell breakthrough
Materials scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and SiEnergy Systems LLC have demonstrated the first macro-scale thin-film solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC). While SOFCs have previously worked at the micro-scale, this is the first time a research group has overcome the structural challenges of scaling up the technology to a practical size with a proportionally higher power output. Reported April 3 in Nature Nanotechnology, the demonstration of this fully functional SOFC indicates the potential of electrochemical fuel cells to be a viable source of clean energy. “The breakthrough in this work is that we have demonstrated power density comparable to what you can get with tiny membranes, but with membranes that are a factor of a hundred or so larger, demonstrating that the technology is scalable,” says principal investigator Shriram Ramanathan, associate professor of materials science at SEAS. SOFCs create electrical energy via an electrochemical reaction that takes place across...