Integration design of membrane electrode assemblies in low temperature solid oxide fuel cell

In this paper, an integration design of membrane electrode assemblies in low temperature solid oxide fuel cells (LTSOFCs) is accomplished by using a mixed ionic–electronic conductor. The mixed ionic–electronic conductor is a composite material, LiNiCuZn oxides, Gd2O3 and Sm-doped CeO2 composited with Na2CO3 (LiNiCuZn oxides-NGSDC), which consists of ionic conductor, n-type and p-type semiconductors. The multi-phase composite material can also be used in single layer fuel cell (SLFC) to replace single-phase materials. A SLFC using the LiNiCuZn oxides-NSGDC composite exhibits an OCV of 1.05 V and maximum power density of 800 mW cm−2, which is comparable to the cell performance of conventional LTSOFCs and much higher than that of SLFC reported before. The reasons leading to the good performance are porous structure of electrode and the matching of ionic conductor and semiconductor.

► An integration design of membrane electrode assemblies is realized.
► The membrane electrode assemble is made by a mixed ionic–electronic conductor.
► The multi-phase composite material can be used in single layer fuel cell.
► A power density of 800 mW cm−2 is achieved by single layer fuel cell at 550 °C.