Fabrication of NiO-SDC Composite Anodes Using Gel-Casting for Low-Temperature SOFCs

Abstract

NiO-SDC(Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9) cermet anodes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) were fabricated by sintering NiO-SDC composite particles derived from gel-casting. The influence of Ni content and sintering temperature on the electrode polarization using humidified CH4 as fuel was investigated in order to optimize the fabrication conditions. The lowest anodic polarization was obtained for an anode sintered at 1350 oC and consisting of equal volume of Ni and SDC. The anodic polarization at 600 oC was about 37mV at a current density of 300mA/cm2. Maximum power density of 352 mW/cm2 was achieved at 600oC for a single cell based on the optimized anode, inferring high catalytic activity of the gel-cast Ni-SDC anode. This high performance seems to be attributed to the microstructure in which Ni and SDC are uniformly distributed.