Praseodymium Cuprate Thin Film Cathodes for Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Roles of Doping, Orientation, and Crystal Structure

Kunal Mukherjee; Yoshiaki Hayamizu; Chang Sub Kim; Liudmila M Kolchina; Galina N Mazo; Sergey Ya Istomin; Sean R Bishop; Harry L Tuller

doi:10.1021/acsami.6b08977

Praseodymium Cuprate Thin Film Cathodes for Intermediate Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Roles of Doping, Orientation, and Crystal Structure

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2016 Dec 21;8(50):34295-34302. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b08977. Epub 2016 Dec 7.

Authors

Kunal Mukherjee¹, Yoshiaki Hayamizu^{1

2}, Chang Sub Kim¹, Liudmila M Kolchina³, Galina N Mazo³, Sergey Ya Istomin³, Sean R Bishop¹, Harry L Tuller¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
² Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University , Sendai 908-8579, Japan.
³ Department of Chemistry, Moscow State University , Leninskie Gory, Moscow 119991, Russia.

PMID: 27998143
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b08977

Abstract

Highly textured thin films of undoped, Ce-doped, and Sr-doped Pr₂CuO₄ were synthesized on single crystal YSZ substrates using pulsed laser deposition to investigate their area-specific resistance (ASR) as cathodes in solid-oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The effects of T' and T* crystal structures, donor and acceptor doping, and a-axis and c-axis orientation on ASR were systematically studied using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy on half cells. The addition of both Ce and Sr dopants resulted in improvements in ASR in c-axis oriented films, as did the T* crystal structure with the a-axis orientation. Pr_1.6Sr_0.4CuO₄ is identified as a potential cathode material with nearly an order of magnitude faster oxygen reduction reaction kinetics at 600 °C compared to thin films of the commonly studied cathode material La_0.6Sr_0.4Co_0.8Fe_0.2O_3-δ. Orientation control of the cuprate films on YSZ was achieved using seed layers, and the anisotropy in the ASR was found to be less than an order of magnitude. The rare-earth doped cuprate was found to be a versatile system for study of relationships between bulk properties and the oxygen reduction reaction, critical for improving SOFC performance.

Keywords: combinatorial deposition; mixed ionic electronic conductors; orientation control; solid-oxide fuel cells; thin-film cathodes.