Investigation of Ni-coated-steel-meshes as alternative anode contact material to nickel in an SOFC stack C. Babelot a,* , Q. Fang b , L. Blum b , G. Natour a a Forschungszentrum Ju ¨ lich GmbH, Central Institute of Engineering, Electronics and Analytics (ZEA-1), 52425 Ju ¨ lich, Germany b Forschungszentrum Ju ¨ lich GmbH, Institute of Energy and Climate Research (IEK-3), 52425 Ju ¨ lich, Germany article info Article history: Received 11 October 2018 Received in revised form 24 January 2019 Accepted 30 January 2019 Available online xxx Keywords: SOFC Nickel Stack test Electron microscopy Oxidation Materials science abstract Solid oxide fuel cell is a promising technology to convert renewable energy sources to electricity electrochemically at high efficiencies, thus an important applied research topic worldwide. The in-house developed so-called F-stack-design aims at stationary applica- tions and can achieve a very long lifetime. However, since production costs should be reduced, one research focus lies on finding suitable less expensive materials. Therefore, alternatives for the benchmark Ni-mesh as anode contacting element in the stack were studied. Several types of Ni-coated-steels were tested in a stack. After 3000 h of operation the different anode contact materials are compared with the Ni-mesh in terms of micro- structure as well as chemical composition. A discussion of the results is given. © 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction The research activities on solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) [1,2] and solid oxide electrolysis (SOE) [3,4] at Forschungszentrum Ju ¨ lich include an interdisciplinary team of researchers work- ing on various key issues such as the design of the stacks, the development of the cells and the thermo-mechanical prop- erties of the glass-ceramic sealant [5,6]. Two concepts of stack design are currently investigated by these scientists: the standard so-called F-design and the alternative lightweight so-called CS-design. The first one aims at stationary applica- tions achieving a very long working time [7e9]. The second one is currently being developed for auxiliary power unit ap- plications, where a short start-up time and a robust behavior under thermal cycling, i.e. excellent thermo-mechanical properties are required [10,11]. The lifetime of the CS-design could be improved together with increased resistance to corrosion of metal sheets [12]. A stack is typically composed of stainless steel plates, glass-ceramic sealant, the ceramic cell and electrode contact Abbreviations: LoCa, low-carbon; SST, Stainless steel. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: c.babelot@fz-juelich.de (C. Babelot), q.fang@fz-juelich.de (Q. Fang), l.blum@fz-juelich.de (L. Blum), g.natour@fz- juelich.de (G. Natour). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/he international journal of hydrogen energy xxx (xxxx) xxx https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.01.282 0360-3199/© 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Babelot C et al., Investigation of Ni-coated-steel-meshes as alternative anode contact material to nickel in an SOFC stack, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2019.01.282