Cell Performance Stability of HMFC using Ba(Ce1-xZrx)0.8Y0.2O3 Perovskite Type Proton Conductor as Electrolyte

Abstract

AbstractWe have developed a new type of FC which shows high performance at intermediate temperatures to solve the disadvantage of using hydrocarbon as fuel to FC system. This new FC is an ultra-thin proton conductor electrolyte supported by a metal hydrogen membrane. We have named itHydrogenMembraneFuelCellThe HMFC using BaCe0.8Y0.2O3 (BCY) as the electrolyte and pure Palladium as the substrate exhibits a high cell performance of 2.7 A/cm2 @0.5V, 873K and 1.8 A/cm2 @0.5V, 673K. But the BCY cell performance drops rapidly during several hours. It was inferred that this phenomenon is caused by BCY electrolyte dissolved by hydrothermal reaction with H2O vapor which was generated by the fuel cell reaction.We studied the possibility as HMFC electrolyte of Ba(Ce0.5Zr0.5)0.8YO3 (BCZY) and BaZr0.8Y0.2O3 (BZY) which are exchanged the B site of BCY perovskite ceramic from Ce to Zr to improve the resistance against the hydrothermal dissolution. BCZY and BZY confirmed the resistance against the hydrothermal dissolution improved compared with BCY by analyzing after the hydrothermal treatment. The BCZY cell shows the same level of the performance as the BCY cell and the performance stability has improved over the BCY cell.