Tomov R I, Mitchell-Williams Tom, Gao Chenlong, Kumar R V, Glowacki B A
1Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge, CB3 0FS UK.
2Institute of Power Engineering, Warsaw, Poland.
J Appl Electrochem. 2017;47(5):641-651. doi: 10.1007/s10800-017-1066-1. Epub 2017 Mar 27.
The effect of solid oxide fuel cell cathode microstructure modification on its electrochemical activity is investigated. Inkjet printing infiltration was used to develop a nano-decoration pattern on the composite cathode scaffolds. Two types of composite LaSrCoFeO:CeGdO cathodes with different volume ratios (60:40 and 40:60 vol%) were fabricated using inkjet printing of suspension inks. The electrodes were altered by single-step inkjet printing infiltration of ethanol-based CeGdO ink. After heat treatments in air at 550 °C the cathodes' surfaces were shown to be nano-decorated with CeGdO particles (~20-120 nm in size) dispersed uniformly onto the electrode scaffold. The nano-engineered microstructure enhanced the active triple phase boundary of the electrode and promoted the surface exchange reaction of oxygen. Electrochemical impedance tests conducted on symmetrical cells showed a reduction in the polarization resistance of between 1.3 and 2.9 times. The effect was found to be more pronounced in the 60:40 vol% composite cathodes. Ageing of infiltrated electrodes up to 60 h in air revealed enhanced stability of gadolinium doped ceria nanoparticles decorated electrodes ascribed to the suppression of SrO surface segregation. This work demonstrated that single-step inkjet printing infiltration can produce reproducible performance enhancements and thus offers a cost-effective route for commercial solid oxide fuel cell infiltration processing.
研究了固体氧化物燃料电池阴极微观结构改性对其电化学活性的影响。采用喷墨印刷浸润法在复合阴极支架上形成纳米装饰图案。通过喷墨印刷悬浮液油墨制备了两种不同体积比（60:40和40:60体积%）的复合LaSrCoFeO:CeGdO阴极。通过基于乙醇的CeGdO油墨的单步喷墨印刷浸润对电极进行改性。在550 °C空气中热处理后，阴极表面显示出CeGdO颗粒（尺寸约为20 - 120 nm）的纳米装饰，这些颗粒均匀地分散在电极支架上。纳米工程微观结构增强了电极的活性三相边界，促进了氧的表面交换反应。在对称电池上进行的电化学阻抗测试表明，极化电阻降低了1.3至2.9倍。发现在60:40体积%的复合阴极中这种效果更为明显。浸润电极在空气中老化长达60小时，结果表明由于抑制了SrO表面偏析，钆掺杂二氧化铈纳米颗粒装饰的电极稳定性增强。这项工作表明，单步喷墨印刷浸润可以产生可重复的性能提升，从而为商业固体氧化物燃料电池浸润工艺提供了一种经济高效的途径。
