Cost-effective Manufacturing and Morphological Stabilization of Nanostructured Cathodes for Commercial SOFCs
- Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
The overall goals of the program were to develop methods for preparing and stabilizing SOFC electrodes by infiltration that can be manufactured on a practical scale, then transfer those methods to cells in stacks. Cathodes prepared by infiltration of nanoparticles into a porous scaffold of the electrolyte have demonstrated outstanding electrochemical performance and mechanical strength but are difficult to manufacture due to the large number of infiltration steps required to produce a conductive composite and show poor stability due to sintering of the nanoparticles. At Penn, the main goal was to develop a fabrication method that uses only a small number of infiltration steps. Infiltration with molten salts and electrodeposition were pursued but deemed impractical. A method in which an electronically conductive scaffold consisted of a composite of a mixed conductor, LSF (La0.9Sr0.1FeO3), with yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) was found to be promising. While some cation mixing between LSF and YSZ was observed during calcination, there was no evidence for new phases in XRD and incorporation of Zr into the perovskite could be minimized by reducing the Sr content of the LSF. To stabilize nanoparticles infiltrated into the LSF-YSZ composite scaffold, the USC team examined the effects of Atomic Layer Deposition with ZrO2 and infiltrated nanoparticles. Significantly enhanced stability was observed with the infiltrated nanoparticles. The FuelCell Energy team prepared 4”x4” cells in which an LSF-YSZ composite scaffold was cofired with the YSZ electrolyte and infiltrated with LSCF nanoparticles. Apparently because the LSF-YSZ scaffold layer was very thin in this case, the cation mixing that occurred during calcination resulted in a poor scaffold-electrolyte interface which caused reduced performance.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE), Clean Coal and Carbon Management
- Contributing Organization:
- Prof Kevin Huang, Mechanical Engineering, University of South Carolina FuelCell Energy, Inc., Danbury, CT
- DOE Contract Number:
- FE0023317
- OSTI ID:
- 1461485
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-Penn-23317
- Resource Relation:
- Related Information: 1) “Preparation of SOFC Cathodes by Infiltration Into LSF-YSZ Composite Scaffolds”, Yuan Cheng, Anthony S. Yu, Xiaoyan Li, Tae-Sik Oh, John M. Vohs and Raymond J. Gorte, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 163 (2016) F54-F58.2) “Fabrication of MnCo2O4-YSZ composite cathodes for solid oxide fuel cells by electrodeposition”, Y. Zhao, T.-S. Oh, Y.-D. Li, J. M. Vohs, and R. J. Gorte, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 163 (2016) F863-866.3) F. Si, G. Zhang and K. Huang, “Improving Intermediate-temperature Performance of a Screen-printed LSCF cathode by LSCF Nanoparticles”, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol.163 (7) (2016) F626-F6284) X. Jin, J. Wang, L. Jiang, R. White and K. Huang, “A Finite Length Cylinder Model for Mixed Oxide-ion and Electron Conducting Cathodes Suited for Intermediate-temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells”, Journal of the Electrochemical Society Vol.163 (6) (2016) F548-F5635) “An Investigation of LSF-YSZ Conductive Scaffolds for Infiltrated SOFC Cathodes”, Y. Cheng, T-S. Oh, R. Wilson, R. J. Gorte, and J. M. Vohs, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 164 (2017) F525-29.6) “Toward Stabilizing Co3O4 Nanoparticles as an Oxygen Reduction Reaction Catalyst for Intermediate-temperature SOFCs”, K. Huang, Y. Ren, Y. Cheng, and R. J. Gorte, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 164 (2017) F3001-7.7) Xinfang Jin, Meng Guo, Ralph E. White, and Kevin Huang, “Understanding Power Enhancement of SOFC by Built-in Chemical Iron Bed: A Computational Approach”, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 164 (11) E3054-62 (2017).8) “Modification of LSF-YSZ Composite Cathodes by ALD”, M. Rahmanipour, Y. Cheng, T. M. Onn, A. Donazzi, J. M. Vohs, and R. J. Gorte, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 164 (2017) F879-84.9) “Composite LSF-YSZ and LSCrF-YSZ Electrode Scaffolds for Infiltrated SOFC Cathodes”, Y. Cheng, T. Oh, M. Rahmanipour, R. Wilson, R. J. Gorte, and J. M. Vohs, ECS Transactions, 78 (2017) 729-740.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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