Direct Flame Exposure Type Fuel Cell

The solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has recently attracted attention as the next generation fuel cell. Disadvantageously, however, the SOFC operates at high temperature, usually 750 to 1,000 degrees of centigrade. Long time is taken and much electric power is consumed till the operating temperature of the SOFC is reached.
During search of patent documents, I unexpectedly hit a patent gazette entitled “Direct Flame Exposure Type Fuel Cell”. This technology is unique in that the power generating cells (stack) are heated directly by a heat source to reduce the startup time of the SOFC. The applicant of the invention of the technology is “Shinko Electric Industries Co., Ltd. (SHINKO)”. The company is a leader of semiconductor packaging manufactures in Japan. It seems that in the invention, the anode side of the cell stack is placed in a flame or located near the flame.
The SHINKO’s homepage says: Such an idea as to directly heat the cell stack for the purpose of reducing the startup time of the SOFC has been known.
The cell stack structure is complicated in many aspects. If heat is directly applied to the cell stack, many problems will be created, and those are serious and difficult to cope with. This encouraged almost no one to take approaches to find solutions to the problems. In this situation, SHINKO ventured to develop the technology of the “direct flame exposure type fuel cell” by making full use of the ceramic technology having been cultivated through the production of ceramic packages.
No other information than above on this technology could be found in the homepage, but the patent database presented many patent applications of the technology (inventions).
[Copyright by FuelCell japan: http://www.fcpat-japan.com/]
For somewhat more detail, visit here.