Glass-ceramic sealants and steel interconnects: Accelerated interfacial stability and reactivity tests at high temperature

High-temperature reactions between glass–ceramic sealants and Fe-Cr alloy interconnects may lead to the formation of undesirable phases, and consequently degradation of solid oxide fuel/electrolyser devices. In this work, three different glass–ceramic sealants (Na-containing, Ba-containing, Sr-containing compositions) and Fe22Cr stainless steel powders (raw and pre-oxidised) are considered in order to test their chemical reactivity at 750 °C and 850 °C for 500 h in static air. The novelty of this approach is related to the use of powder mixtures instead of studying the reactivity on planar interfaces, which allows a better evaluation the materials’ reactivity. Oxidation tests indicate that the Sr-containing glass–ceramic/steel couple is the least reactive among the aged samples. For the Ba-containing samples, the formation of an undesirable phase of BaCrO₄ is observed by diffractometry and photoelectron spectroscopy analyses. The present research explores, for the first time, the effects of exposing the high surface area of the alloy powder and glass–ceramic sealant interface, assessed by oxidation testing and microstructural analysis. The results show that by using mixed powders with large interface surface areas, degradation of the materials can be observed after relatively short times, allowing accelerated screening of the reactivity of materials, and thus their further development.