Performance of fuel cells with proton-conducting ceria-based composite electrolyte and nickel-based electrodes

A ceria-based composite electrolyte with the composition of Ce0.8Sm0.2O1.9 (SDC)–30 wt.% (2Li2CO3:1Na2CO3) is developed for intermediate temperature fuel cells (ITFCs). Two kinds of SDC powders are used to prepare the composite electrolytes, which are synthesized by oxalate coprecipitation process and glycine–nitrate process, respectively, and denoted as SDC(OCP) and SDC(GNP). Based on each composite electrolyte, two single cells with the electrolyte thickness of 0.3 and 0.5 mm are fabricated by dry-pressing technique, using nickel oxide as anode and lithiated nickel oxide as cathode, respectively. With H2 as fuel and air as oxidant, all the four cells exhibit excellent performances at 400–600 °C, which can be attributed to the highly ionic conducting electrolyte and the compatible electrodes. The cell performance is influenced by the SDC morphology and the electrolyte thickness. More interestingly, such composite electrolytes are found to be proton conductors at intermediate temperature range for the first time since almost all water is observed at the cathode side during fuel cell operation for all cases. The unusual transport property, excellent cell performance and potential low cost make this kind of composite material a good candidate electrolyte for future cost-effective ITFCs.