Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)

VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland is an impartial expert organisation. In the field of fuel cell technology VTT is the leading institute in fuel cell research in the Nordic countries. VTT fuel cell research supports industry product development by maintaining a development platform comprising a large selection of research facilities, a selection of developed modelling tools and know-how encompassing different technologies throughout the entire business chain. Mostly of the fuel cell project in VTT are co-funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, the European research programmes, industry and VTT. At present, more than 30 different companies are involved in the various projects. The main research areas today are PEFC and SOFC including systems, applications, demonstrations, stacks, components and materials.

The purpose of the SOFC research at VTT is to develop new technology and to provide information for industrial enterprises in order to support development work on SOFC-based power plants. It also supports the development of stacks, development of balance of plant (BOP) components and application of SOFC power plants. One purpose is also to increase the understanding of the fundamentals of SOFC science and systems. In the stack development, the main focus is to develop verified stack layouts in multi-kilowatt stack sizes. Because of this research and development is focused on chromium evaporation barrier and contact coatings on steel interconnects, on sealing materials and on stack design issues.

VTT SOFC team has 10 members and all having higher universal degree. Four of them are having doctoral degree.