Testing cells decide whether your SOEC or SOFC results reflect the cell chemistry or just the fixture around it. Solid oxide electrochemistry runs at high temperature with brittle ceramic electrolytes, reactive humidified fuels, and tight gas-tightness requirements — so the hardware that holds the cell, seals the manifolds, contacts the electrodes, and feeds reactants is itself a major source of variability. This collection covers laboratory-scale fixtures used to characterize button cells, planar cells, and short stacks for solid oxide electrolysis (SOEC) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC), as well as adjacent operando and flow-cell platforms researchers commonly co-purchase.
Typical use cases include i-V and i-V-P polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy across a controlled fuel/oxidant atmosphere, long-duration durability and degradation studies, redox cycling, and steam-electrolysis testing where humidified hydrogen or CO2/H2O mixtures feed the fuel electrode. Hardware selection turns on a few practical questions: which cell footprint (button, planar square, or stack repeat unit), what sealing strategy (compressive mica/glass-ceramic versus rigid glass), what current-collection scheme (mesh, paste, or contact frame), and whether you need optical or X-ray access for operando work.
What you will find here:
- Single-cell SOEC/SOFC test fixtures for button and planar geometries, with separated fuel and oxidant chambers and provisions for reference electrodes.
- Short-stack and repeat-unit hardware with serpentine or parallel flow fields for evaluating interconnect, contact, and sealing behavior beyond the single-cell level.
- Flow electrolyzers, PEC-EC hybrid cells, and porous solid-electrolyte reactors used by groups that move between high-temperature solid oxide work and room-temperature CO2 reduction or electrosynthesis on the same bench.
- Operando-access cells (optical quartz windows, IR-ATR, X-ray CT) and corrosion fixtures useful for qualifying interconnect alloys and coatings.
If you are running button-cell screening of new air-electrode or fuel-electrode compositions, start with the single-cell fixtures. For interconnect, contact, and sealing studies, move to the short-stack hardware. For mechanistic work that needs to see the electrode while it operates, see the operando window and split-cell options. Related sections: Electrolyzers & Fuel Cells, Testing Cells, and Energy Conversion.
