Coating cost calculations for mass production (D3.4)
One of the tasks of PilotSOEL project is to evaluate the mass scalability of the solid oxide electrolisers.
One of the key components for the stack is the Interconnector Plate (IC). The IC plate usually made from high grade stainless steel has to survive and perform with minimal degradation in very harsh environment [1–4]. Because of the high stack operations temperatures and exposure to hydrogen, oxygen, water steam in high operational temperatures, various chemical and physical changes of the plate can occur.
These changes are crucial as the movement of elements from the plate towards the cell, for example Cr migration, poisons the whole electroliser and its performance drops significantly. Therefore, protective coatings should be used to prevent the interactions between IC plate and the cell it self [5–7]. The efficiency of the protective coatings, especially Mn based spinel oxides have been reported in D3.3.
The coatings for the IC plate within the PilotSOEL project were made by magnetron sputtering. The advantage of this method is density of the coated layers and its scalability. The process parameters are described in detail in D2.2. We will use these parameters as inputs to calculate the potential throughput of an inline coater and make estimations about OPEX and CAPEX when moving to mass scale production, with the aim of achieving cost of 1 EUR per coated plate.