Scale‐up of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells with Magnetron Sputtered Electrolyte

Abstract

The possibility of fabricating large‐area solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) with thin film electrolyte using a commercial physical vapor deposition technology is investigated. Yttria‐stabilized zirconia (YSZ)/gadolinium‐doped ceria (GDC) bilayer electrolyte is successfully deposited on a 10 × 5 cm2 commercial NiO/YSZ anode support by reactive magnetron sputtering. The microstructure of the fuel cells was studied by scanning electron microscopy. Current‐voltage characteristics of fuel cells at a temperature of 750°C and their power stability under electrical load were investigated. Single cells with La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3/ Gd0.1Ce0.9O1.95 (LSCF/GDC) cathode had an open cell voltage of 1.14 V and a maximum power density of 490 mW cm−2 at 750 °C using H2/N2 gas mixture as fuel and air as the oxidant. Three‐cell planar SOFC stack using 10 × 5 cm2 anode‐supported unit cells with power density of 450 mW cm−2 at a voltage of 0.7 V per cell has been assembled and tested.

Anode‐supported solid oxide fuel cells with multilayer LSC/CGO/LSC cathode

“…It is well known that at lower temperatures, the SOFC efficiency loss occurs with increasing ohmic resistance of the electrolyte and growing rates of electrode electrochemical reactions. The first of these problems is successfully solved by reducing the electrolyte thickness [2][3][4][5][6]. The use of materials with high catalytic activity, such as electrodes, in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) [7,8] or the fuel oxidation reaction [9,10] as well as the optimization of the electrode microstructure, can partially improve the electrode efficiency.…”

Electrophoretic Deposition and Characterization of the Doped BaCeO3 Barrier Layers on a Supporting Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9 Solid-State Electrolyte

“…Various methods are used for the deposition of barrier layers in SOFC technology [ 21 , 22 ]: ceramic methods, such as screen-printing [ 23 ] and tape calendering [ 24 , 25 ]; vacuum deposition technologies, e.g., magnetron sputtering [ 26 , 27 ], pulsed laser deposition [ 10 , 28 ], and physical vapor deposition (PVD) [ 29 ]; aerosol-spraying methods under atmospheric [ 30 ] and reduced pressures [ 31 ]; and colloidal and solution technologies—electrophoretic deposition [ 32 , 33 ], dip-coating and sol-gel [ 34 , 35 ], suspension centrifugation [ 36 ] etc. One of the flexible, easy-to-implement, and cheap technologies is electrophoretic deposition (EPD), which does not require high-tech equipment and allows the deposition of coatings at room temperature in ambient air with a sufficiently high deposition rate of ~1–10 μm per 1 min [ 37 ].…”

Boosting intermediate temperature performance of solid oxide fuel cells via a tri‐layer ceria–zirconia–ceria electrolyte

“…In this study, we further explore the potential of such tri‐layer electrolyte system by combining the more scalable ceramic powder processing technique screen printing 20,21 with magnetron sputtering 22 . The first GDC layer is fabricated by screen printing on a 5 × 5‐cm 2 anode substrate with a thin anode layer, and the half‐cell is subsequently co‐sintered to ensure a gas‐tight electrolyte.…”

“…In this study, we further explore the potential of such tri-layer electrolyte system by combining the more scalable ceramic powder processing technique screen printing 20,21 with magnetron sputtering. 22 The first GDC layer is fabricated by screen printing on a 5 × 5-cm 2 anode substrate with a thin anode layer, and the half-cell is subsequently co-sintered to ensure a gas-tight electrolyte. Another key advantage is the ability to integrate an Ni-GDC anode (which additionally offers higher performance and stability than Ni/YSZ 3,23 ) in the cell, which is a major challenge when using a zirconia-based electrolyte during co-sintering.…”