Ultra-fast fabrication of tape-cast anode supports for solid oxide fuel cells via resonant acoustic mixing technology

Abstract

Abstract Herein, for the first time, we demonstrate ultra-fast fabrication of a tape casted NiO-yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) anode support for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) using resonant acoustic mixing (RAM) technology. Due to its characteristics of non-contact and high-intensity acoustic field-assisted mixing, NiO-YSZ tape-cast slurry is prepared via a RAM process within ∼0.5 h, > 140 times faster than use of a conventional ball-milling (BM) process (∼72 h). During the RAM process, liquid binders more effectively penetrate into soft agglomerated ceramic powders and covered larger surface area than the case of BM process. The optimization of RAM procedure requires more subdivided mixing sequence and higher content of binders and plasticizers compared to that of the BM. Despite drastically reduced mixing time, the microstructures of RAM Ni-YSZ anode, quantified via a 3D reconstruction, are statistically identical to that of BM Ni-YSZ. The SOFC employing RAM Ni-YSZ anode support achieves 0.55 W/cm2 at 750 °C in peak power density and exhibits high durability for 300 h without noticeable degradation. Thus, our results demonstrate that the RAM process is a highly effective and ultra-fast mixing technology to produce high performance SOFC components.