Enhancing the performance of doped ceria interlayer for tubular solid oxide fuel cells

Doped ceria interlayer fabricated by conventional wet ceramic process such as dip-coating often suffers from high resistance due to either low density or solid-state reaction with yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). This work presents a new route to reduce the resistance by increasing the density while minimizing the solid-state reaction through impregnating samaria-doped ceria (SDC) nano-particles to porous SDC interlayer of anode-supported tubular SOFCs. Results show that impregnated fine structure can substantially reduce the ohmic resistance, from 0.140 to 0.087 Ω cm2 at 750 °C, and consequently significantly improve the fuel cell performance, peak power density from 1.01 to 1.50 W cm−2 at 750 °C. The significant improvements demonstrate that impregnation is an effective method to improve the interlayer performance.