An Electrolyte‐Free Fuel Cell Constructed from One Homogenous Layer with Mixed Conductivity

Abstract

Rather than using three layers, including an electrolyte, a working fuel cell is created that employs only one homogenous layer with mixed conductivity. The layer is a composite made from a mixture of metal oxide, Li0.15Ni0.45Zn0.4 oxide, and an ionic conductor; ion‐doped ceria. The single‐component layer has a total conductivity of 0.1–1 S cm−1 and exhibits both ionic and semiconducting properties. This homogenous one‐layer device has a power output of more than 600 mW cm−2 at 550 °C operating with H2 and air. Overall conversion is completed in a similar way to a traditional fuel cell, even though the device does not include the electrolyte layer critical for traditional fuel‐cell technologies using the three‐component anode–electrolyte–cathode structure.

Breakthrough fuel cell technology using ceria-based multi-functional nanocomposites

“…More significant developments of the NANOCOFC material functionalities expanded to integrate semi-and ion conducting materials in a nanocomposite and its applications have resulted in a revolutionary FC technology: EFFCs from our very recent work following also by others [3][4][5][6][93][94][95][96][97].…”

“…Based on the NANOCOFC our recent developments on electrolyte -free fuel cells (EFFCs) have physically removed the electrolyte component/layer by using one component/layer of the ceria-and transition metical oxide nanocomposite [3][4][5][6]. It is the breakthrough point over the conventional anode/electrolyte/cathode three-layer fuel cells (FCs), in which the electrolyte is indispensable for charge separation and energy extraction from the chemical energy of fuels.…”

Progress in Electrolyte-Free Fuel Cells

“…The maximum output power could reach 700 mW/ cm 2 , when it was further doped by the oxidation-reduction catalyst Fe (Zhu et al, 2011b). The LiNiZnO2−δ-SDC composite materials achieved the maximum power output of the EFFC device with up to 600 mW/cm 2 at 550°C (Zhu et al, 2011c). The total conductivity of LiNiZnO2−δ-SDC-mixed materials of ion conductor and semiconductor is up to 0.1-1 S/cm.…”

“…Its working temperature ranges from 300 to 600°C. The different working principle of EFFC has been presented by Zhu et al (2011cZhu et al ( , 2012.…”

Natural Hematite for Next‐Generation Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

“…This decrease in grain boundary resistance is likely a consequence of oxygen-ion and proton migrations increasing with the temperature, which simultaneously shortens the polarization relaxation time and reduces the total resistance. [ 17 ] With respect to the ion diffusion processes in hematite, they include movement within one type of crystal grain and ion transport through the interfaces of Fe 2 O 3 and SiO 2 grains, whereas the CaCO 3 component provides a transport path for protons. [ 20 ] The current-voltage characteristics and the corresponding power densities of hematite and hematite-LSCF composite SOFCs are shown in Figure 3 a,b, for operating temperatures between 500 and 600 °C.…”