Patent 7998635 was granted and assigned to Mitsubishi Materials on August, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A conductive and tabular separator is inserted into the gap between the fuel electrode layer of an i-th power generating cell and the oxidizer electrode layer of an (i+1)-th power generating cell adjacent to the fuel electrode layer. A fuel supply passage is so formed on one face of each of these separators that a fuel gas flows radially from almost the center of the fuel electrode layer to its edge. An oxidizer supply passage is so formed on the other face that an oxidizer gas outgoes almost uniformly in a shower toward the oxidizer polar layer. Thus, all of the surfaces of the power generating cells contribute to power generation to increase the frequency of collision between the fuel gas and the fuel electrode layer and that between the oxidizer gas and the oxidizer electrode layer, and to improve the generation efficiency.