Page 38 - High Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Fundamentals, Design and Applications

Introduction to SOFCs 19

Similar arguments apply to truck cabs which have to be heated.
Smaller, portable SOFC power units which can replace batteries are also being
considered. These can deliver power in the range from 20 We to 10 kWe and can
run directly on a wide range of fuels from natural gas, to propane, methanol and
isooctane. If the cells are small to avoid thermal shock, then the start-up can be
quick [45]. The other application for such units is in residential cogeneration
using pipeline gas. Installing SOFCs in every home will cut residential carbon
dioxide emissions by up to 50%.

1 .I 3 SQFC-Related Publications

SOFC technology has been advancing at a rapid rate over the past years since
Minh and Takahashi published their excellent monograph [46]. Large numbers
of new developments have occurred and many more scientists and engineers are
working in this field. Bringing all the research and development information
together in this one volume should help to unify the subject and produce further
breakthroughs.
Several conference proceedings are published each year containing material
on SOFCs but these tend to be collections of individual research papers at a
particular time rather than a complete compendium of the technology. These
include The Electrochemical Society Proceedings series on SOFCs which has
been edited by Singhal et a1 [47-541, and the Proceedings of the European SOFC
Forums [55-591.
It is believed that the publication of this volume will provide detailed up-to-
date information for the researchers who are about to make SOFCs commercial
in the near future.

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