Skip to McMaster Navigation Skip to Site Navigation Skip to main content
McMaster logo

Solid Oxide Fuel Cell / Gas Turbine Hybrid Systems

  Faculty of Engineering - Department of Chemical Engineering,

  Thomas A. Adams II (tadams@mcmaster.ca), Haoxiang Lai ( laih@mcmaster.ca ), Nor Farida Harun (Nor.Harun@NETL.DOE.GOV), David Tucker (David.Tucker@NETL.DOE.GOV), Valentina Zaccaria (Valentina.Zaccaria@netl.doe.gov), Alberto Traverso (alberto.traverso@unige.it)

  Status
Ongoing
  Start Date
April, 2013
  Countries
Canada, Italy, United States of America

We are developing new power plants that use a combination of solid oxide fuel cell technology integrated with gas turbine technology to make the next generation of power plants. The McMaster crew focuses on theoretical advances, while the US Department of Energy team focuses on experiments using their 500 kW pilot plant. Together, we are learning how to better design and operate these systems to advance them to the commercial stage.

Impact

We have published 5 papers so far during the collaboration, describing major findings such as understanding the complex nonlinear dynamic behaviour of SOFC/GT systems, better control systems, and better ways to operate them such that the lifetime of the fuel cells are much extended.

Student Experience

One PhD student spent close to three years at the US Department of Energy pilot plant in order to conduct her experiments. She was later hired by the US DOE as a postdoc. A second PhD student is about to continue the project with them once he begins his PhD in September.

Countries
Canada, Italy, United States of America
Impact
Research
Institutional Partner(s)
United States Department of Energy, University of Genoa, Italy
Community Partner(s)
Industry Partner(s)
Key Outcomes
Publications
Sponsorship
Foreign
Sponsorship Details
The PhD students’ salary was funded by an external scholarship for the duration of her PhD.
MOU
Yes

Related Activities