Impact theme
Decarbonising hard-to-abate sector

Sector
Energy Systems

Affiliation
DTU Energy and DTU Construct

Stage

Team
Ahsanul Kabir, postdoc, Technological Development and Project Lead
Debora Maranai, postdoc and Business Development
Vincenzo Esposito, Professor and Scientific Advisor
Venkata Nadimpalli, Senior Researcher

Why it Matters

Today, the global energy market relies heavily on fossil fuels, from powering industries to fueling transportation. This results in significant greenhouse gas emissions and local environmental pollution, ultimately endangering our ecosystems and livelihoods. Solid oxide cells (SOCs) present one of the most promising and mature alternatives to fossil fuels for converting renewable energy sources into fuels. However, current SOC technology faces major challenges like high production costs, complex manufacturing, limited design flexibility, mechanical weaknesses, and durability issues. These barriers prevent SOCs from being widely adopted and from replacing conventional fossil-fuel-based systems on a large scale.

Working on

The solution is a compact, mechanically robust, regenerable, and modular Solid Oxide Cell (SOC) electrochemical converter—a reversible gas-to-power and power-to-gas device. The project is utilising 3D printing to make a self-supporting monolithic SOC featuring a gyroid lattice structure, which provides an exceptionally high surface area. This advanced technology offers unmatched design flexibility and precision, making constructing highly customizable complex SOC architecture in a single step possible. This streamlined process not only simplifies manufacturing by reducing the number of fabrication steps but also minimizes material waste, leading to lower production costs.