High temperature corrosion in SOFC environments

Abstract The corrosive environment in solid oxide fuels cells (SOFCs) using natural gas (mainly methane) as fuel is considered. In the anode chamber the gas is highly carburizing at the gas inlet and after gradual oxidation it becomes highly humid, but weakly oxidizing (high CO 2 :CO ratio) at the gas outlet; in the cathode chamber the gas is highly oxidizing (air). In addition to noble metals, nickel and chromia-forming alloys are considered as potential metallic interconnects and their corrosion behavior in the SOFC environment is discussed.