A coking-tolerance dendritic anode with exceptional power density toward direct ethanol-fueled solid oxide fuel cells

Abstract

The highly efficient utilization of liquid biofuels is a major challenge for the current economic society. As one of the most promising energy conversion devices, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) offer a feasible approach to alleviate this problem, yet the output power is limited by the concentration loss. In this work, Ni-gadolinium doped ceria anode with dendritic microchannels is prepared to accelerate mass transport and boost the electrochemical performance of ethanol-fueled SOFCs. The peak power densities of button cells with dendritic anode achieve 1.66 and 1.37 Wcm−2 at 700 °C using wet hydrogen and dry ethanol as fuels, respectively. More importantly, the concentration polarization can be almost negligible when using 30 vol% dry ethanol as fuel. Simultaneously, the button cell shows a favorable coke tolerance in a 100 h short-term durability test. These results demonstrate that the dendritic microchannel for SOFCs is a high-efficiency solution to facilitate mass transfer and improve the electrochemical performance of hydrocarbon fuels.