The International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Technology was held in Ningbo on November 9-12. The symposium was chaired by Dr. Subhash Singhal, the world-famous SOFC specialist and member of US National Academy of Engineering, and Professor Weiguo Wang, group leader of the NIMTE SOFC team. The symposium focused on three aspects: cell and stack materials, stacks, systems and commercialization status, and SOFC performance and modeling.
Five top SOFC specialists in the world were invited to give plenary talks, including Dr. Subhash Singhal from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA, Dr. Robert Steinberger-Wilckens from the Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany, Dr. Teruhisa Horita from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan, Dr. Niels Christiansen from the Topsoe Fuel Cell A/S, Denmark, and Prof. Weiguo Wang from Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. They gave plenary talks “High Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Development and Commercialization Status in the United States”, “Recent Developments in SOFC at Research Centre JÜLICH and Trends in European SOFC Commercialization”, “SOFC Technology Progress in Japan and Contribution of AIST”, “Development of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells at Topsoe Fuel Cell: from Science to Technology”, “SOFC Development at NIMTE：Challenges and Solutions for SOFC Technologies”, respectively. Six active SOFC researchers in the world were also invited to give talks, including Prof. Xiao-Dong Zhou from University of South Carolina, Prof. Minfang Han from China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing, Prof. Jian Li from Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Prof. Shaorong Wang from Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Prof. Mojie Cheng from Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Prof. Zhe Lv from Harbin Institute of Technology.
More than 100 SOFC specialists, researchers and corporate executives attended this event including 74 registered participants and 27 from 18 different corporations. The participating organizations covered 10 countries and regions in the world: China/Taiwan, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Japan, Korea, Singapore, UK and USA. The symposium also promoted and encouraged the participation of young researchers to devote into the SOFC field, and received recognition from The Electrochemical Society. Six Dokiya Symposium travel grants were awarded at the symposium to Ms. Areum Jun and Seonyoung Yoo from Korea, Mr. Jianjun Yang and Xingbao Zhu from China, Mr. Tsang-I. Tsai from UK and Mr. Xiaoming Ge from Singapore.
The symposium provided an excellent platform for in-depth and in-breadth communications for all participants, promoted the communication and collaboration between academia and corporate on the commercialization and development of SOFC-related industries. This would lead to the speed-up of the development and commercializing progress of SOFC technology. The participants also visited the SOFC laboratories in the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE), Chinese Academy of Sciences, after the symposium was ended. (Image by NIMTE)