Nanotubes of rare earth cobalt oxides for cathodes of intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells

Abstract

In this work we studied the electrochemical properties of cathodes for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFCs) prepared with nanotubes of La 0.6Sr 0.4CoO 3 (LSCO). Their nanostructures consist of agglomerated nanoparticles in tubular structures of sub-micrometric diameter. The resulting cathodes are highly porous both at the micro- and the nanoscale. This fact increases significantly the access to active sites for the oxygen reduction. We investigated the influence of the diameter of the precursor nanotubes on the polarization resistance of the LSCO cathodes on CeO 2–10 mol.% Sm 2O 3 (SDC) electrolytes under air atmosphere, evaluated in symmetrical [LSCO/SDC/LSCO] cells. Our results indicate an optimized performance when the diameter of precursor nanotubes is sufficiently small to become dense nanorods after cathode sintering. We present a phenomenological model that successfully explains the behavior observed and considers that a small starting diameter acts as a barrier that prevents grains growth. This is directly related with the lack of contact points between nanotubes in the precursor, which are the only path for the growth of ceramic grains. We also observed that a conventional sintering process (of 1 h at 1000 °C with heating and cooling rates of 10 °C min −1) has to be preferred against a fast firing one (1 or 2 min at 1100 °C with heating and cooling rates of 100 °C min −1) in order to reach a higher performance. However, a good adhesion of the cathode can be achieved with both methods. Our results suggest that oxygen vacancy diffusion is enhanced while decreasing LSCO particle size. This indicates that the high performance of our nanostructured cathodes is not only related with the increase of the number of active sites for oxygen reduction but also to the fact that the nanotubes are formed by nanoparticles.