A team of researchers at DTU may have cracked one of the toughest nuts in sustainable energy: how to make fuel cells light and powerful enough for aerospace applications.
An interdisciplinary collaboration between DTU Energy and DTU Construct has developed a radical redesign of the so-called solid oxide cells (or SOCs), using 3D printing and gyroid geometry. This intricate structure is mathematically optimized to improve surface area in a given volume and is employed both by engineers for heat exchangers and by nature in structures such as butterfly wings.
Gyroidal architecture is structurally robust, has a large surface area, and is lightweight. For the first time, DTU scientists have shown how to use the gyroid to make electrochemical conversion devices such as SOCs.
To power a commercial airplane today, you need jet fuel. If you retrofit a regular jet, replacing its 70 tons of fuel with Li-ion batteries of similar capacity, its weight would be 3,500 tons. And so it wouldn't take off.
The same has been true for fuel cells, mostly confined to flat, heavy stacks that rely on metal parts for sealing and connectivity. So, those are heavy, too. Metal components make up more than 75% of a fuel cell system's weight, severely limiting their mobility and consequently, their usefulness in, for example, aerospace applications.
In a new paper published in Nature Energy, DTU scientists may have flipped the script. Professor Vincenzo Esposito from DTU Energy, Senior Researcher Venkata Karthik Nadimpalli from DTU Construct, and several colleagues from both departments have designed a new fuel cell that is fully ceramic and is built by 3D printing. The printed structure is known as a triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) and is mathematically optimized for maximum surface and minimum weight.
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