Novel polymer fibers prepared by electrospinning for use as the pore-former for the anode of solid oxide fuel cell

One-dimensional polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers prepared by electrospinning technique are used as a novel pore-former for the conventional NiO/yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) anodes of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC). This pore-former forms wire-like pores in the anode substrates, which are beneficial for rapid transport of the fuel and byproduct. The advantage of using this pore-former over the conventional ones (e.g. wheat flour and carbon) is that only a small amount of fibers could generate large amount of continuous pores within the anode for gas transport. In addition the cell with PVA fibers as pore-former for anode exhibits enhanced anode electrocatalytic activity and the cell performance significantly, compared to the cells without pore-former and with wheat flour as pore-former. In this research, an anode-supported SOFC with PVA fibers as pore-former for anode exhibits an open-circuit voltage (OCV) of 1.08 V and maximum power density of 751 mW cm−2 at 800 °C.