Demonstrating the potential of iron-doped strontium titanate electrolyte with high-performance for low temperature ceramic fuel cells

Enabling high ionic conductivity in semiconductor electrolyte membrane by surface engineering and band alignment for LT-CFCs

“…The detailed parameters of the above equation can be found elsewhere [31][32][33]. data, the XRD pattern of 10%CF-SrTiO 3 & 5%CF-SrTiO 3 mostly crossponds to cubic perovskite structure; a minor peak of Co/Fe is apparent due to the low-temperature sintering suggesting that the obtained structure is pure cubic perovskite structure; also, it is in agreement with the published literature [12,23,34]. The surface doping content of 5% and 10% were used in pure SrTiO 3 crystalline structure, and the doping caused enhanced the lattice parameters and reduce the peak intensity.…”

“…The attained power density via surface doping of 10%CF-SrTiO 3 is comparable to or even higher than the reported literature of SOFC-based electrolytes such as YSZ (Yttria stabilized zirconium), SDC (Samariumdoped Ceria), and BCZYY (BaCoZrYYb), SFT (SrFeTiO 3 ), SrTiO 3 , La-SrTiO 3 under the identical operating condition, where electrolyte possesses the thickness of 0.7 mm [2,12,22,23,37,38]. Fig.…”

“…3(c and d) reveals that a well and strong diffraction plane has been confirmed, suggesting the well crystalline structure and wellaligned with the XRD phase structure; the existence of the surface layer confirmed the surface doping of Co/Fe into SrTiO 3 lattice. Moreover, the particles at nanoscales with more active sites seem to be welladherent and coherent, establishing a series of connections between particles, further enhancing the charge transportation at the surface and interface [17,23,27]. The diffraction planes with different d-spacing 0.24 nm and 0.26 nm cross-ponds to the diffraction planes of 110 101, respectively.…”

“…Such high performance is owed to surface doping and lower grain boundary resistance, as discussed in the above EIS analysis. The surficial doping approach may effectively create more active sites and fast-moving paths for ion transport on the Surface [14,17,23]. Also, surface doping influences the bandgap (energy band alignment), enhancing the electrical property and fuel cell performance.…”

“…It has been used widely for solar cells, batteries, photocatalysis, and fuel cell applications due to its enormously enriched electrical, physical, and optical properties [20]. Also, doping different elements, especially the lower valent such as the Al +3 , La, Nb, Fe, etc., into SrTiO 3 remains a practical approach to enhance the performance by producing abundant O-vacancies of different devices, including photocatalysis and fuel cell [21][22][23][24][25]. Also, in recent years the heterostructure technique has emerged as an exciting area in boosting the performance of fuel cells [26,27].…”