Application of yttrium doped barium cerate for improvement of the dual membrane SOFC design

Recently a new design of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) named dual membrane fuel cell (dmFC) has been introduced and proved. It is based on the introduction of three independent compartments for hydrogen, oxygen and water, which eliminate the dilution of the fuel or the oxidizer respectively in the SOFC construction or in its proton conducting (pSOFC) modification. Due to the registered sufficient mixed ionic conductivity of BaCe0.85Y0.15O2.925 (BCY15), a simplified modification in respect to shaping technology and construction is introduced. It's performance is better than the one of pSOFC cell produced with the same material and shaping procedure: 76 mW/cm2 (dmFC thickness 1.1 mm) against 71 mW/cm2 (pSOFC thickness 0.66 mm) at 700 °C. Impedance measurements carried out down to 1 mHz ensure information about the water formation and behaviour in the separate central membrane compartment of the dmFC design, which brings to performance improvements, registered also in electrolyser mode of operation.