A commercial lithium battery LiMn-oxide for fuel cell applications

• Commercial lithium battery electrode for fuel cell application.
• Comprehensive study of fuel cell with electrolyte and without electrolyte separator.
• Nanocomposite approach improves the device performance.

Hereby we report first a commercial lithium battery LiMn-oxide (LMO) positive electrode material for fuel cell applications. The obtained LMO can be used for both anode and cathode in a three-layer fuel cell, but displays low electro-catalytic activity and power output. Using a nanocomposite approach we have significantly improved the cell performance from tens mW cm−2 up to 210 mW cm−2, which is technically useful for low temperature (bellow 600 °C) ceramic fuel cells. We also constructed single-layer fuel cell using the LMO/SDC–metal oxide composite and achieved even better performances than those for conventional anode–electrolyte–cathode three-layer fuel cells.