I understand the basic concept of a fuel cell.
The Bloom Box is kind of like an industrial-sized refrigerator, that sucks up oxygen on one side and fuel (natural gas, biomass, etc) on the other. Reports say that Bloom Energy bakes sand and cuts it into little squares that are turned into a ceramic, which are then coated with green and black “inks.” Using a special process Bloom Energy creates these ceramic discs and stacks them together interspersed with metal plates of “a cheap metal alloy.” The bigger the stack the more power the Bloom Box will create.
what I dont understand is why the cataylsist and proton exchange membrane dosen't get poisioned from the carbon. Sure the silica/ceramic plates can withstand the 1000 degree temperatures and reforms the feedstock into H2 rich gas but during startup before it gets up to temperature how do they solve that problem? I'm thinking the plates are screen printed with a platinum, rutheum type dye?