A comparative study has been carried out on the effects of pore-forming agents on the microstructural characteristics and properties including porosity, microstructures, linear sintering shrinkage and mechanical strength of NiO/yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ). Different pore-forming agents (soluble starch, graphite and activated carbon) were incorporated into NiO/YSZ at various mass mixing ratios (5%, 10% and 15%). The experimental results show that under the condition of same content, sintered samples using activated carbon as pore-forming agent had a higher porosity than that with identical content of the other two kinds of pore-forming agents. Sintered samples with 10.0 wt% activated carbon had a porosity of 35%. Section morphologies show that pores distributed uniformly and connected very well in the anode with activated carbon as pore-forming agent. The mechanical strength of these sintered samples with carbon as pore-forming agent was also higher. With the activated carbon particle size decreasing (from 100 mesh to 320 mesh), the open porosity of porous NiO/YSZ was reduced (from 31.7% to 30.9%). It may be concluded that The activated carbon is the better choice as pore-forming agent for NiO/YSZ anode.

The graphite was used as pore-forming agent to prepare porous NiO-Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) anode material. The influence of the content of pore-forming agent of the anode material, and the change of the anode material before and after the reduction of NiO were investigated. It was found that the porosity and shrinkage rate of the anode increased with the addition of the pore-forming agent, and the thermal shock resistance also improved. We chose Y(NO3)3·6H2O and ZrOCl2·8H2O as raw materials, ethylene glycol monomethyl ether as solvents to make collosol. And electrolyte membrane on the Si piece was prepared by spin-coating. The electrolyte membrane would be thinner if it spined faster and longer. Then we chose the anode material as support to prepare electrolyte membrane. The thickness of the electrolyte membrane increased with the increase of the number of layers. Two layers were the most appropriate.

Different contents of bismuth oxide doped in 3YSZ material and the mixed powder formed. After press forming,the samples were sintered at 850°C, 900°C, 1000°C and 1100°C respectively. The electrical properties,the thermal shock resistance,the phase components and the microstructure morphology were analyzed to study the solid solution mechanism of Bi2O3-Y2O3-ZrO2 three-phase system. It was found that the Bi2O3 can effectively reduce sintering temperature as a flux. Sintered at 1000°C, t-ZrO2 can be induced into m-ZrO2 by Bi2O3 doped. With the increasing of Bi2O3 content, system shock resistance decreases. The thermal shock resistance of the 2-3mol% Bi2O3-YSZ is the best. In the different content of Bi2O3 system, 3mol% doped materials has the highest conductivity.