Abstract
Solid oxide electrolyzer cells (SOECs) are devises which recently have attracted lots of attention due to their advantages. Their high operating temperature leads to mechanical compatibility issues such as thermal expansion mismatch between layers of material in the cell. The aim of this study is to mitigate the issue of thermal expansion mismatch between Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3−δ (BSCF) and samaria doped ceria, Sm0.2Ce0.8O1.9 (SDC), enhance the triple-phase boundaries and improve the adhesion of the electrode to the electrolytes, hence improve the cell performance. To make BSCF more thermo-mechanically compatible with the SDC electrolyte, the formation of a composite electrode by introducing SDC as the compositing material is proposed. In this study, 10wt.%, 20wt.%, 30wt.%, 40wt.%, and 50wt.% of commercial SDC powder was mixed with BSCF powder, prepared by sol-gel method, to make the composite air electrode. After successfully synthesizing the BSCF-SDC/YSZ-SDC/Ni-YSZ electrolyzer cell, the electrochemical performance was tested for the intermediate-temperature SOEC (IT-SOEC), over the temperature range of 650–800°C. The microstructure of each sample was studied by field emission electron microscopy (FESEM, JEOL, JSM 6340F) for possible pin holes. The result of this study proves that the sample with 20% SDC-80% BSCF shows the highest performance among the investigated cells.
Published Version
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