Methods of refurbishing components of a fuel cell stack
View Patent ↗Methods for refurbishing components, such as interconnects of a fuel cell stack, include singulating the stack and removing the electrolyte, seals and oxide layer using non-mechanical methods. The various methods of may be used either singly or in combination.
1. A method of singulating a fuel cell stack, comprising:
providing the fuel cell stack comprising a plurality of layers; and
singulating the fuel cell stack using a non-mechanical method to remove at least one layer of the plurality of layers from the fuel cell stack;
wherein the non-mechanical method comprises:
directing radiation energy at a portion of the fuel cell stack containing the layer to induce uneven heating in the stack; and
removing the layer from the fuel cell stack; and
wherein the radiation energy is configured to non-uniformly heat the layer relative to an adjacent portion of the fuel cell stack to induce thermal shock in the layer and to crack a sealing material that adheres the layer to the stack.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the layer comprises an interconnect.
3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising removing debris from the interconnect, wherein the debris comprises at least one of electrolyte material, seal material and chromium oxide material.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein at least a portion of the debris is removed by inductive heating, radiative heating, thermally heating in a reducing gas containing environment, chemical wet etching, or acoustic energy.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the portion of the stack is heated to a temperature in a range of 850° C. to 1450° C., and the radiation energy comprises infrared radiation from a heat lamp, microwave radiation, or laser radiation.