Carbonate dual-phase improves the performance of single-layer fuel cell made from mixed ionic and semiconductor composite

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A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä
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2020-12
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Department of Applied Physics
Department of Chemistry and Materials Science
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en
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BMC Energy
Abstract
A mixed ionic and semiconducting composite in a single-layer configuration has been shown to work as a fuel cell at a lower temperature (500–600 °C) than a traditional solid-oxide fuel cell. The performance of a single-layer fuel cell (SLFC) is often limited by high resistive losses. Here, a eutectic mixture of alkali-carbonates was added to SLFC to improve the ionic conductivity. The dual-phase composite ionic conductor consisted of a ternary carbonate (sodium lithium potassium carbonate, NLKC) mixed with gadolinium-doped cerium oxide (GDC). Lithium nickel zinc oxide (LNZ) was used as the semiconducting material. The LNZ-GDC-NLKC SLFC reached a high power density, 582 mW/cm2 (conductivity 0.22 S/cm) at 600 °C, which is 30 times better than without the carbonate. The best results were obtained with the ternary carbonate which decreased the ohmic losses of the cell by more than 95%, whereas the SLFC with a binary carbonate (sodium lithium carbonate, NLC) showed a lower conductivity and performance (243 mW/cm2, 0.17 S/cm at 600 °C). It is concluded that adding carbonates to LNZ-GDC will improve the ionic conductivity and positively contribute to the cell performance. These results suggest a potential path for further development of SLFCs, but also imply the need for efforts on up-scaling and stability to produce practical applications with SLFC.
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DOI
10.1186/s42500-020-00014-3
Citation
Jouttijärvi, S, Yao, X, Asghar, M I, Etula, J, Reinecke, A-M, Lippmann, W & Lund, P D 2020, ' Carbonate dual-phase improves the performance of single-layer fuel cell made from mixed ionic and semiconductor composite ', BMC Energy, vol. 2, 4 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s42500-020-00014-3
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https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202401041039
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[article-cris] Kemian tekniikan korkeakoulu / CHEM