Design, Fabrication and Characterization of a Gas Processing Unit Testing Platform for Micro-Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Micro-scale solid oxide fuel cell is a promising power generation technology for portable devices such as laptop, medical devices and personal electronics. One of the key goals in design of μ-SOFC systems is to use common hydrocarbon fuels such as propane/butane, which requires an additional micro-scale gas-processing unit (GPU) to reform the fuel, avoiding the coking on the μ-SOFC membranes. However, no integrated micro-fabricated testing platform has been reported for evaluating the stability, thermal management and efficiency of GPU devices as far. Therefore we present such a GPU testing platform, which features integrated heating function and temperature control as well as convenient and reliable fluidic and mechanical interconnects.