Unraveling the conundrum of electronic leakage in protonic ceramic cells: Operation-specific insights and rational design strategies

Abstract

Electronic conduction through proton-conducting electrolytes significantly impairs the efficiency of protonic ceramic cells (PCCs). In this study, we explore the electron and ion mixed transport properties of four common protonic ceramics, BaZr0.8Y0.2O3-δ (BZY82), BaZr0.7Ce0.2Y0.1O3-δ (BZCY721), BaZr04Ce0.4Y0.1Yb0.1O3-δ (BZCYYb4411), and BaZr0.1Ce0.7Y0.1Yb0.1O3-δ (BZCYYb1711). It marks the first instance of investigating these properties under operation-specific scenarios: fuel side of electrolysis cell, air side of electrolysis cell, fuel side of fuel cell, and air side of the fuel cell. BZCYYb1711 exhibits the highest ionic conductivity, but two to three times higher electronic leakage when exposed to oxygen-containing environments than the others. BZY82 exhibits approximately two times higher electronic leakage in a hydrogen-containing environment. BZCY721 demonstrates excellent ion transport numbers (∼0.95) across these four operating conditions. BZCYYb4411 behaves quite similarly to BZCY721. The most challenging operating environment for all candidates is the air side of fuel cell mode. This mode leads to a high initial electronic leakage, followed by a significant increase with polarization. The probable cause for this behavior is a H2-free, polarization-induced reduction that leads to the formation of VO•. The electron small polaron associated with VO• is released by the electrical field due to the Poole-Frenkel effect. ZnO and NiO sintering aids are found to be detrimental to the ionic conductivity of the electrolytes. In particular, NiO substantially lowers the ion transport number. The correlation of the operation-specific electronic leakage to full cells is discussed. It is suggested that a rational PCC design should synergistically couple BZCYYb1711 at fuel side with BZCY4411 at air side to deliver a well-balanced performance and faradaic efficiency simultaneously, and the high temperature sintering process with a NiO fuel electrode should be shortened or replaced by ultra-fast sintering techniques or using a fuel electrode scaffold-infiltration fabrication strategy.