Study on gas seal configuration for molten carbonate fuel cells

Molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFCs) are expected to be large-scale, highly efficient energy sources in the future. A reactant gas seal is one of the critical issues in achievement of reliability of the MCFC stack, which is a key piece of equipment in an MCFC power plant. At present, the wet gas seal with carbonate molten at the operating temperature (650 °C) is generally considered to be suitable as such a seal. On the other hand, to be cost-competitive with existing power plants, the MCFC stack must consist almost entirely of thin sheet metal parts. In this report, a wet gas seal configuration composed of thin sheet metal parts is proposed. Then, the long-term performance of the wet gas seal in an actual MCFC is evaluated.