Evaluation of porous platinum, nickel, and lanthanum strontium cobaltite as electrode materials for low-temperature solid oxide fuel cells

• Porous Pt, Ni, and LSC electrodes were fabricated on polycrystalline YSZ wafers.
• Best performance was exhibited by the fuel cell using a Pt electrode under 400 °C.
• Above 450 °C, LSC showed sharply improved performance through bulk ionic conduction.
• Ni coarsening caused poor performance throughout the operation.

Porous Pt, Ni, and lanthanum strontium cobaltite (LSC) are evaluated as electrode materials for solid oxide fuel cells at the low temperature range under 500 °C. Porous metal electrodes 150 nm thick are prepared by sputtering. Porous LSC was deposited to a typical thickness of 1.5 μm by pulsed laser deposition as the cathode. In terms of fuel cell performance, we confirm that Pt is the best material for both the cathode and the anode under 400 °C, but LSC outperforms Pt as a cathode at temperatures over 450 °C in our configurations. Porous Ni anode is identified as being less effective than the porous Pt. It is determined that these results are closely related to the differences in electrode performance and to morphological changes during fuel cell operation.