Allegheny Technologies Incorporated has announced that ATI Allegheny Ludlum, an Allegheny Technologies company, has been awarded a subcontract from the University of Pittsburgh with support from the US Department of Energy (DoE) to develop specialty metallic materials for use in fuel cells intended for the power generation industry. The development contract is aimed at creating critical interconnect materials for solid oxide fuel cells. Interconnect materials provide an electrical current path as well as structure to the fuel cell. Successful materials must exhibit strength while being able to resist high heat in a variety of gaseous environments.
"Fuel cell interconnect materials represent one of two material challenges to making solid oxide fuel cells a reality for the power generation market," said Wayne Surdoval, DoE’s Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Coordinator.
The SECA initiative within the DoE is driving the rapid development and commercialization of solid oxide fuel cell technology in the mass market for stationary distributed power generation. SECA industry partners include: General Electric, Delphi, Fuel Cell Energy, Siemens Westinghouse Power Systems, Cummins (SOFCo), and Accumentrics.
