Plasma sprayed metal-supported solid oxide fuel cell and stack with nanostructured anodes and diffusion barrier layer

•Plasma sprayed metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells•Durable 10 × 10 cm2 metal-supported solid oxide fuel cell•18-cell stack with 606 W at 800 °C

Plasma sprayed LSGM (La0.8Sr0.2Ga0.8Mg0.2O3 − δ) based metal-supported solid oxide fuel cells with nanostructured LDC (Ce0.55La0.45O2 − δ)–Ni anode and LSCM (La0.75Sr0.25Cr0.5Mn0.5O3 − δ) diffusion barrier layer are developed in our institute. The non-sealed single cell measurement configuration is applied to test the performance and the durability of a prepared 10 × 10 cm2 cell. The tested cell can deliver the power densities of 543, 480, 352 and 214 mW cm− 2 at 0.6 V for the test temperatures of 800, 750, 700 and 650 °C respectively. Results obtained from long term durability test show that this cell with a porous Ni–Fe metal substrate, a porous LSCM diffusion barrier layer, a porous nano-structured LDC–Ni anode layer, a thin dense LDC isolation layer, a dense crack free LSGM electrolyte layer, a porous LSGM–LSCF (La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3 − δ) cathode interlayer and a porous LSCF cathode current collecting layer has a degradation rate of ~ 2.2% kh− 1 during the test period of 3700 h at conditions of 700 °C and 400 mA cm− 2 current density. The tested 18-cell stack in a sealed configuration shows that it can deliver a power of 606 W at 42.4% fuel utilization, 0.75 V and 800 °C. Each cell in the stack has an open circuit voltage larger than 1 V.