Highly CO2-Tolerant Cathode for Intermediate-Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Samarium-Doped Ceria-Protected SrCo0.85Ta0.15O3-δ Hybrid

Mengran Li; Wei Zhou; Zhonghua Zhu

doi:10.1021/acsami.6b12606

Highly CO₂-Tolerant Cathode for Intermediate-Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: Samarium-Doped Ceria-Protected SrCo_0.85Ta_0.15O_3-δ Hybrid

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Jan 25;9(3):2326-2333. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b12606. Epub 2017 Jan 12.

Authors

Mengran Li¹, Wei Zhou², Zhonghua Zhu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland , St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.
² Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University , No. 5 Xin Mofan Road, Nanjing 210009, P. R. China.

PMID: 28079356
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b12606

Abstract

Susceptibility to CO₂ is one of the major challenges for the long-term stability of the alkaline-earth-containing cathodes for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells. To alleviate the adverse effects from CO₂, we incorporated samarium-stabilized ceria (SDC) into a SrCo_0.85Ta_0.15O_3-δ (SCT15) cathode by either mechanical mixing or a wet impregnation method and evaluated their cathode performance stability in the presence of a gas mixture of 10% CO₂, 21% O₂, and 69% N₂. We observed that the CO₂ tolerance of the hybrid cathode outperforms the pure SCT15 cathode by over 5 times at 550 °C. This significant enhancement is likely attributable to the low CO₂ adsorption and reactivity of the SDC protective layer, which are demonstrated through thermogravimetric analysis, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, and electrical conductivity study.

Keywords: CO2 poisoning; IT-SOFC; ORR; cathode; stability.