Microstructural investigations of materials for low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) based fuel cell using small angle neutron scattering

The concept and the realization fuel cell based on LTCC technology require the
investigations of fired LTCC microstructures. The majority of the works involved using small
angle neutron scattering studies on the microstructural of LTCC ceramic tape and development
of neutron tomography for future tool to visualize channels inside the fired tape. Most SANS
characterization were carried out at Smarter SANS instrument at BATAN, Indonesia. Standard
sample for resolving tens of micron of object size were measured using simple neutron
tomography setup utilizing monochromatic SANS beam at Malaysian Nuclear Agency. The
initial microstructural findings indicates that organic additives shape the final microstructural
of LTCC after firing with the glassy material possibly fill the space left by the burned organic
additives. The tomography results showed that 40 micron size object can be differentiated. The
conductor deposited on LTCC is preliminary investigated which will later be used as support
for catalyst.