Abstract
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are power-generating devices with high efficiencies and considered as promising alternatives to mitigate energy and environmental issues associated with fossil fuel technologies. Nanoengineering of electrodes utilized for SOFCs has emerged as a versatile tool for significantly enhancing the electrochemical performance but needs to overcome issues for integration into practical cells suitable for widespread application. Here, we report an innovative concept for high-performance thin-film cathodes comprising nanoporous La0.6Sr0.4CoO3−δ cathodes in conjunction with highly ordered, self-assembled nanocomposite La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3−δ (lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite) and Ce0.9Gd0.1O2−δ (gadolinia-doped ceria) cathode layers prepared using pulsed laser deposition. Integration of the nanoengineered cathode layers into conventional anode-supported cells enabled the achievement of high current densities at 0.7 V reaching ~2.2 and ~4.7 A/cm2 at 650 °C and 700 °C, respectively. This result demonstrates that tuning material properties through an effective nanoengineering approach could significantly boost the electrochemical performance of cathodes for development of next-generation SOFCs with high power output.
Highlights
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are power-generating devices with high efficiencies and considered as promising alternatives to mitigate energy and environmental issues associated with fossil fuel technologies
It must be noted that to date only LSC-GDC19 and Sr-doped SmCoO3 (SSC)-SDC (Srdoped SmCoO3 and Sm-doped CeO2)[20] nanocomposites have so far been reported to be successfully grown via pulsed laser deposition (PLD), but no similar study has yet reported the successful fabrication of nanocomposite thin films comprising LSCF and rare-earth-doped ceria
The preferentially tilted growth direction can be ascribed to the 60° incident angle of the laser beam in the design of the PLD system, such that the ablated species from the target would arrive on the substrate from a slightly oblique direction
Summary
Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are power-generating devices with high efficiencies and considered as promising alternatives to mitigate energy and environmental issues associated with fossil fuel technologies. In addition to improving production routes and efficiency of cell stacks, improving performance by achieving higher power densities has been identified as a strategy to reduce stack size and system cost Toward this purpose, advanced thin-film techniques such as pulsed laser deposition (PLD) have been utilized to explore alternative and nanoengineered cathode materials exhibiting high performance in terms of low area-specific resistance (ASR) and high oxygen exchange properties superior to those of conventional cathodes prepared by screen-printing techniques[12,13,14,15,16,17]. In the optimized cell configuration, superior electrochemical performance with high current densities at 0.7 V reaching ~2.2 and ~4.7 A/cm[2] at 650 and 700 °C, respectively, are achieved
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