Controlling the morphology and uniformity of a catalyst-infiltrated cathode for solid oxide fuel cells by tuning wetting property

Evolution of the electrochemical interface in high-temperature fuel cells and electrolysers

“…Control of microstructure during fabrication is very dependent on the surface chemistries of the support material and the impregnates. Lou et al showed that matching the wettability of the impregnation solution to the support material can greatly improve resulting microstructures and electrochemical performance 75 . Other issues are the scalability and time consumption of the technique.…”

Performance optimization of LSCF/Gd:CeO2 composite cathodes via single-step inkjet printing infiltration

“…Previous studies by Lou et al [24] have shown that tuning the wetting properties of the infiltrate ink with organic solvents was an efficient way to improve the wettability on LSCF grains and enhance the uniformity of the nanoparticle distribution. Thus, Ce 0.9 Gd 0.1 (NO 3 ) 3 solution ink (1.0 M total metal concentration) was prepared by dissolving Ce(NO 3 ) 3 ·6H 2 O (99.5%, Sigma-Aldrich), Gd(NO 3 ) 3 ·6H 2 O (99%, Sigma-Aldrich) and citric acid-C 6 H 8 O 7 [(99%, Sigma-Aldrich)] with metal ions:citric acid in a molar ratio of 1:1.5 in ethanol (EtOH).…”

Nano-structured composite cathodes for intermediate-temperature solid oxide fuel cells via an infiltration/impregnation technique

“…The microstructure seems to be related to the fabrication process, for the fabrication of YSB or GDC infiltrated LSM cathodes, the infiltration sources are only the corresponding nitrate solutions. It has been shown that adding an extra additive, such as Triton X-100 [62], glycine [63], or ethanol [87] into the solution would help to improve the uniformity of the nanoparticles. For this type of infiltration strategy, there is still lack of reports on the long term stability of the microstructure.…”

“…Lou et al have recently reported systematic study on controlling the morphology and uniformity of the SSC infiltrated cathodes [87]. The effect of addition of various complexing reagents including Triton X-45, Triton X-100, citric acid, and urea on the phase formation has been investigated.…”