Abstract
Here we report a photonic annealing process for yttria-stabilized zirconia films, which are one of the most well-known solid-state electrolytes for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Precursor films were coated using a wet-chemical method with a simple metal-organic precursor solution and directly annealed at standard pressure and temperature by two cycles of xenon flash lamp irradiation. The residual organics were almost completely decomposed in the first pre-annealing step, and the fluorite crystalline phases and good ionic conductivity were developed during the second annealing step. These films showed properties comparable to those of thermally annealed films. This process is much faster than conventional annealing processes (e.g. halogen furnaces); a few seconds compared to tens of hours, respectively. The significance of this work includes the treatment of solid-state electrolyte oxides for SOFCs and the demonstration of the feasibility of other oxide components for solid-state energy devices.
Highlights
With the increasing interest and popularization of renewable energy conversion and storage systems over the past years, much attention has been focused on technologies such as secondary batteries, photovoltaics, electrolysers and fuel cells
Recent studies have focused on lowering the operating temperature to 400–600 °C to bypass these challenges; this is accompanied by an inevitable decrease in the performance due to the lower ionic conductivity and activation kinetics for charge transfer at these temperatures[14,15]
Oxide ion conducting yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) thin films were prepared using the sol-gel method employing a mixture of metal acetates dissolved in acetic acid (HOAc) and ethylene glycol as complexing and polymerization agent, respectively
Summary
With the increasing interest and popularization of renewable energy conversion and storage systems over the past years, much attention has been focused on technologies such as secondary batteries, photovoltaics, electrolysers and fuel cells. In order to attain reasonable power outputs, SOFCs require relatively high operating temperatures (800–1000 °C) to mitigate the low ionic conductivity of the popular yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte material. Regardless of the deposition method, a heat treatment process (including post-annealing) is generally required to achieve highly crystalline oxide films with desired properties As these sintering processes are usually performed at temperatures above 1200 °C in conventional furnaces under controlled environments, the overall fabrication time and cost are high. This limitation in the ceramic processing of thin films is a key obstacle hindering large-scale commercialization of devices incorporating such materials For these reasons, many novel techniques had been proposed and investigated for reducing the time and temperature of the ceramic film fabrication process including heat treatment while ensuring acceptable material properties of the thin film oxide. The irradiated films were compared with conventionally annealed YSZ films and the microstructure, film composition (including organic residue and crystalline phases), and ionic transport properties were analysed
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