Abstract
Nanoionics has become increasingly important in devices and systems related to energy conversion and storage. Nevertheless, nanoionics and nanostructured electrodes development has been challenging for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) owing to many reasons including poor stability of the nanocrystals during fabrication of SOFCs at elevated temperatures. In this study, a conformal mesoporous ZrO2 nanoionic network was formed on the surface of La1−xSrxMnO3/yttria-stabilized zirconia (LSM/YSZ) cathode backbone using Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) and thermal treatment. The surface layer nanoionic network possesses open mesopores for gas penetration, and features a high density of grain boundaries for enhanced ion-transport. The mesoporous nanoionic network is remarkably stable and retains the same morphology after electrochemical operation at high temperatures of 650–800 °C for 400 hours. The stable mesoporous ZrO2 nanoionic network is further utilized to anchor catalytic Pt nanocrystals and create a nanocomposite that is stable at elevated temperatures. The power density of the ALD modified and inherently functional commercial cells exhibited enhancement by a factor of 1.5–1.7 operated at 0.8 V at 750 °C.
Highlights
All ALD processes were performed on a Savannah 200 Atomic Layer Deposition system
During the processing of growing a ZrOx amorphous layer, the sample stage was firstly pre-heated to 260 °C, and total 35 ALD cycles were performed to build up a 20 nm layer
The ZrOx layer was subsequently heat-treated at 850 °C for crystallization before cell operation
Summary
Nanoionics has become increasingly important in devices and systems related to energy conversion and storage. Nanoionics and nanostructured electrodes development has been challenging for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) owing to many reasons including poor stability of the nanocrystals during fabrication of SOFCs at elevated temperatures. The surface layer nanoionic network possesses open mesopores for gas penetration, and features a high density of grain boundaries for enhanced ion-transport. The promise of nanoionics (nanocrystalline ionic materials) has significantly stimulated and advanced the research and development of novel devices for energy conversion and storage including rechargeable batteries[1,2,3], owing to enhanced ionic transport compared to conventional materials. The reported data on the conductivity of different nanostructured systems remain disjointed, compelling theoretical and experimental evidence indicates that ionic conductivity, at high temperatures that SOFCs operate, could be significantly improved owing to the fast ion transport along grain boundaries and interfaces[13,14,15,16,17]. When applied in the porous SOFC electrode, the thin film deposition technique must be altered to produce conformal and uniform layer/multilayers within
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