Physical characterization of LSCF-NiO as cathode material for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFCs)

Abstract

Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) is a promising technology to generate clean electricity to the environment with large scale application. However, the high operating temperature has several negative impacts such as faster material degradation and high operating cost. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the operating temperature to intermediate temperature range (600–800 °C). La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ (LSCF) is an attracting and promising material to be used as cathode for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC) due to its exceptional properties such as high electrical conductivity and high catalytic activity toward the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Infiltration of NiO within LSCF structure is foreseen to enhance the physical and electrochemical properties for IT-SOFC). Thus, this study utilizes modified sol–gel for the preparation of LSCF and NiO from metal nitrates and calcine temperature range from 600 °C to 900 °C. A sample consists of 1:1 ratio of LSCF and NiO was used for characterization with XRD and TGA/DTA. XRD result proved high purity of LSCF-NiO and increase in crystal size with increase in calcining temperature. TGA/DTA result shows that removal of organic compound occurs at 200–400 °C with peak at 250 °C and the perovskite completely formed at 650 °C. SEM result obtain similar pattern with XRD analysis where increment in calcining temperature increase the crystal size for the samples. Therefore, sample calcined at 700 °C and above have excellent properties for IT-SOFC application.