Densification of Plasma-Sprayed YSZ Electrolyte by Suction Filtration Using Submicron/Nanoparticle Suspension for Metal-Supported SOFCs

Abstract

Atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) is widely used for the fabrication of metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells (MS-SOFCs), while the low gas-tightness of the electrolyte layer prepared by APS hinders its implementation on MS-SOFCs. In this study, a simple two-step method was developed to achieve densification of the plasma-sprayed YSZ electrolyte layer through suction filtration in a YSZ submicron/nanoparticle suspension. After the two-step suction filtration, the gas permeability of the YSZ electrolyte decreased from 4.27×10-6 cm4·gf-1·s-1 to 2.75×10-6 cm4·gf-1·s-1. However, there was no obvious increase in the open circuit voltage (OCV) of the treated cell, which indicated that the gas-tightness of the plasma-sprayed electrolyte should be further improved by optimizing the suction filtration conditions.